JACKSON, Miss. ( WJTV ) – A recent analysis reveals that Mississippians are among the least concerned about cybersecurity nationally.

Data attacks have become more commonplace in the state. An April data breach impacted 109 million AT&T customer accounts nationwide. Personal information stolen from a Mississippi hospital system affected about 900,000 people. TorGuard analyzed more than 5,000 relevant search terms within each state to determine overall cybersecurity concerns among its residents. According to Google Trends data analyzed by the tech company, Mississippians rank 40th nationally for worries about their cybersecurity.

The study focused on specific keywords and phrases searched on Google, such as ‘online security tips,’ ‘how to avoid online scams,’ ‘how to protect my data’ and ‘how to spot phishing emails.’ The state’s search index score out of 100 is 11.58.

Despite a low concern for cyberattacks based on Google search data, other research indicates that Mississippians might not have much to worry about. A 2023 study showed that Mississippians face the lowest risk of cybercrime nationally.

Still, organizations statewide have proactively protected themselves and Mississippian’s data. In June , Microsoft announced a new cybersecurity program to support hospitals serving more than 60 million people living in rural America. The program will benefit Greenwood Leflore and Sharkey Issaquena Hospitals.

Additionally, Mississippians are not ignorant of cybersecurity trends in tech. On Google, the state’s most popular tech-related search terms over the past week were ‘crowdstrike’ and ‘microsoft outage.’ About 8.5 million devices using Microsoft’s Windows operating system were affected by Crowdstrike’s faulty cybersecurity update.

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