Recently, we shared some very interesting insights from a poll that we commissioned with Harris Interactive. We found that there are a lot of discrepancies between the way people feel about their online security — or rather, insecurity — and the steps that they take to protect themselves online, as you can see in this infographic:

Click on the infographic for the full size:

What’s interesting to me is that there are actual solutions  (like, ahem, Dashlane) to the challenges that people face with online security. But according to this poll, there are still significant numbers of people who are unaware of them.

I asked the question, “Why do you think so many people are careless about their online security?” on Quora. Here are some of the responses I received:

• Why should people waste their effort thinking up a password when they already have too many (maybe five)? *sigh* Effort
• Simply because they are unfamiliar with threats.
• I’m careless because I have little of value, and the information that I care about only needs to be concealed from a small group of people who are  unlikely to constitute a legitimate security threat.
• Ignorance, convenience, and misplaced trust are the usual reasons.  Even savvy online people will make a mistake or get lazy.
• We (software engineers) haven’t made it easy enough.

So, what do you think? Why are people careless about online security? What motivates you/unmotivates you to protect yourself online? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Also, could you help one of those 45% of confused Americans, and share Dashlane with them please? ;)