There has been a dramatic pivot in personal cybersecurity in the Asia Pacific over the last five years, with more consumers taking responsibility for their own data privacy protections, according to MEF’s 11th Annual Consumer Survey.
The most striking development is the widespread adoption of two-factor authentication, with the use of SMS one-time passcodes (OTPs) to verify the user’s identity more than doubling from just 17% in 2017 to 45% in 2025. The 28 pp increase signals a mass acceptance of higher-friction login methods.
Meanwhile, the proportion of consumers who change the privacy settings on their mobile devices has surged from 20% to 44%, and those who follow protective cookie practices climbed from 20% to 42%. The data highlights a broad movement toward improved digital hygiene in Asia Pacific; it also suggests that data privacy and protection protocols are shifting from being solely the responsibility of tech companies to becoming a daily habit for consumers.
All MEF Market Data is available to download from MEF Data.
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