A third of Maltese said they started using different online passwords after experiencing cybersecurity concerns in recent years, an EU-wide survey found.

A Eurobarometer survey conducted by the European Commission earlier this year found that some 34 per cent of the 500 Maltese respondents had decided to start using different passwords for different websites after security concerns while browsing in the past three years.

On average, men were slightly more likely to have started using different passwords for websites (31 per cent compared to 26 per cent of women).

Meanwhile, 29 per cent said they had started changing their passwords regularly, as they feared keeping the same ones was unsafe and opened them to potential cyberattacks.

Some 40 per cent said they had installed or changed their anti-virus software in recent years to secure their smartphone or computer. This was the most common action in nearly all Member States.

In Malta, the most common action was to change e-mail behaviour. According to the survey report, 43 per cent of Maltese now only open e-mails from familiar addresses.

It is commonplace for the IT administrators in companies to instruct employees to ignore suspicious e-mails.  This answer was also among the most common in most countries surveyed. On average, more than a third of Europeans said they had started doing this.

The survey found that the older the respondents, the more likely they were to have started only opening e-mails from people or addresses they knew but the less likely they were to have started using different passwords for different websites.

In addition, those older than 55 were the most likely to say they now only used their own computer to surf the web but the least likely to say they started changing passwords regularly or to have changed the security settings of their browser.

Daily internet users were more likely to have taken action than those who use the internet less frequently.

The survey also asked respondents whether security concerns featured in their purchasing decision process when they considered a new smartphone or laptop.

Some two-thirds of Maltese said this was a primary or secondary concern.

A third said they were even willing to pay more for a laptop or smartphone that had superior safety specifications.