In the Nordic region, both businesses and consumers have inadequate IT security. Danske Bank is now attempting to do something about this with its “Keep it safe” project, which is intended to improve IT security in the region by means of concrete advice and tests.

Danes have the least secure passwords, Norwegians know the least about IT security, Swedes have the most risky behaviour on the internet, and fewer than a third of Finns read the fine print when they sign an agreement on the internet.

These are some of the results of a large new survey of IT habits among the populations in the four Nordic countries. More than 8,000 people from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland took part in the survey.

“There is actually great interest in IT security in the Nordic region,” says Poul Otto Schousboe, Head of IT Security at Danske Bank, “but unfortunately, it has not made our behaviour on the internet safe enough - far from it.”

With “Keep it safe”, Danske Bank will give everyone the opportunity to test the quality of their IT security, among other things. Danske Bank will also provide a great deal of concrete advice about how you can increase the odds of keeping criminals out of your digital home. For example, you can see how to construct a password and whether it is appropriate to re-use it on multiple websites.

“We are aware that many people want to tell us how we should behave on the internet in the battle against cybercrime,” continues Poul Otto Schousboe. “Unfortunately, this effort has not succeeded well enough yet, since we can see that cybercrime is a rapidly growing problem and knowledge about IT security in the Nordic region is hardly good enough.

“Because we can see in this survey that there is great interest in IT security, we believe that with the ‘Keep it safe’ programme, we can cut through the noise and really help people raise the level of their IT security. We use humour, tests and a familiar approach to communications to make the subject more relevant.”

From 2013 to 2016, the number of reports of data fraud in Denmark exploded from 647 to 22,339.

“It is traumatic to be subjected to cybercrime, and it often has serious consequences for private individuals and businesses,” says Poul Otto Schousboe. “It is therefore important that we all help one another to improve IT security. As one of the largest banks in the region, Danske Bank feels a great responsibility to ensure that our own and our customers’ IT security is as good as possible, and therefore, with ‘Keep it safe’, we will now provide help in the form of good advice in order to improve IT security for individuals, businesses and society in general.”

“Keep it safe” has been launched in Denmark and will also appear in Sweden, Norway and Finland.