Local councils must maintain high trust levels

Local councils enjoy high levels of trust among Australian consumers, but must maintain high cybersecurity standards to ensure they do not jeopardise this trust, new research suggests.

Mimecast’s latest Brand Trust report found that the local government sector is among the top five most trusted industries in Australia, trusted by 58% of consumers.

But cyber attackers are increasingly seeking to exploit this trust by targeting consumers. Although the local government sector was found to be the least likely to be leveraged for a phishing attack in Australia (7%), this is starting to change.

The research found that 78% of Australian respondents naturally expect online services to be safe to use, and over two-thirds state that it is the brand’s responsibility to protect itself from email impersonation and spoofing fraud.

Across all sectors, over half of Australian consumers (59%) say they would stop spending money with their favourite brand if they fell victim to a phishing attack involving that brand, and 60% would lose trust in a brand if they disclosed personal information to a spoofed version of that brand’s website.

This is significant in light of the finding that in Australia 77% of respondents have received phishing emails in their inboxes, and 49% of respondents were directed to a spoofed website from a web search.

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