A recent Kaspersky study* of people across 14 professions finds cybersecurity incident rates ranging from 82% to nearly 90%, that technical fluency changes the type of threat people face rather than whether they face one and even the most cautious groups are not immune. Kaspersky experts recommend to choose comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to stay secured online.
The survey's breakdown across 14 professions shows how differently digital life plays out from one group to the next. Incident rates ranged from 82% among people in administration and business support roles to 89.7% among those in corporate risk, legal and compliance roles, so even the least-affected group still saw more than four in five people hit.
Across the full sample, the most common incidents were fraudulent calls and SMS (40.9%), spam (40.4%) and unwanted advertising (25.5%). Yet when asked what worried them most, people pointed to harder-to-spot threats instead, led by data leakage (45.6%), hacking of social media accounts (44.6%) and theft of personal data (38.1%).
Expertise changes the threat, not the risk
IT security professionals, and others in technical roles such as IT support and software development, were less likely to report everyday nuisances like fraudulent calls (36.3% vs. 42.7% for non-technical respondents) and spam (37.1% vs. 41.3%). Yet their overall incident rate was higher (86% vs. 84.1%) with more encounters with sophisticated threats such as malware (11.3% vs. 8.5%), AI-driven fraud or deepfakes (9% vs. 6.3%) and smart-device attacks (6.8% vs. 4.1%).
IT security respondents specifically showed the sharpest version of this pattern, facing fraudulent calls and spam at a quarter less than the average rate yet still logging an above-average 85.6% cybersecurity incident rate. Technical fluency reduces exposure to obvious threats – it does not confer immunity. It simply shifts the type of threat faced.
People change habits, not tools
After an incident, most people change their own behavior rather than adopting new tools: 44.7% stopped answering calls from unknown numbers, and 36.5% stopped visiting untrusted websites. But only 30.1% enabled multi-factor authentication, and just 24.3% installed protection software. Most people respond, but by adjusting habits rather than adding automatic safeguards.
People in marketing-related roles reported the highest average number of distinct incidents of any group (4.57 versus 3.72 overall), but they were also among the most active to adopt new habits afterward, avoiding public Wi-Fi for transactions (42.4% vs. 24.1% overall), changing passwords more often (41.0% vs. 26.8%) and backing up data (33.1% vs. 23.0%).
Those in corporate risk, legal and compliance roles sit at the other extreme. They reported the highest overall incident rate of any group (89.7%), however, despite the greater experience of encountering incidents, legal representatives do not begin to use more sophisticated protection more actively than others, they simply implement basic measures (do not respond to unfamiliar numbers, use unique passwords and monitor passwords in leaked databases).
Staying protected, whatever your profession
Kaspersky recommends a few steps that apply regardless of profession: turn on multi-factor authentication wherever it's offered, avoid reusing the same password across accounts, use Password Manager to keep all credentials safe.
It’s also important to keep devices and software up to date, and choose cybersecurity protection that runs automatically across every device rather than relying on spotting every warning sign in the moment.
“What this study makes clear is that there’s no single way to stay safe online, the right habits and the right protection depend on how people actually live and work,” said Vladimir Dashchenko, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky. “Marketing professionals, compliance specialists, IT experts and everyone in between face a different mix of risks, so cybersecurity habits and protection measures need to adapt to the specifics of each person’s work and daily habits, rather than expecting everyone to be equally vigilant about everything. As scams become more diverse and increasingly powered by AI, our aim is to make that adaptive, automatic protection available to everyone, covering people’s everyday digital activity across every device, so they can focus on their lives rather than on spotting every red flag.”
With the right protection in place, consumers can navigate their online lives with greater confidence, knowing that safeguarding their data, devices and privacy does not have to rest on their own vigilance alone, whatever their profession or level of digital fluency.
*The study was conducted by Kaspersky’s market research center in March 2026. 7200 respondents from 18 countries (Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam) took part in the survey.
