Employees are often highlighted as the first line of enterprise cybersecurity defense. But who – and what — safeguards our households as we become more connected and digital plays an ever-greater role in our personal and civic existence?
Consumer digital life protection (CDLP) solutions seek to provide the security and privacy controls that households need for their identities, devices, home networks, and digital transactions and interactions. These tools include everything from antivirus and password managers to VPNs and secure home networks.
However, with no security or IT department to advise or support them, are European consumers making the right choices about which technologies to adopt — and do they feel confident about deploying them?
IDC’s 2025 CDLP Survey, which included respondents from the three major European markets of the U.K., France, and Germany, provides insights into the home security goals and challenges of European households.
A Tormented Target Market
The research found that almost half of European consumers lack confidence in selecting the right CDLP solutions. Many simply don’t know what they need — and those that do know find it difficult to choose between the different offerings of different providers. Almost one-quarter of consumers say that CDLP solutions are too difficult to use. Finally, many are concerned about additional costs in their household budgets.
In fact, affordability and ease of use are cited as the top priorities for European consumers when it comes to choosing CDLP solutions. Despite that, potentially advantageous bundled offerings are not so attractive. This suggests that vendors could do more to optimize such bundles and educate prospects on the benefits of a comprehensive package.
What would such packages need to deliver? The most common consumer complaints are forgotten passwords/password resets, but these are not the only challenge. Others include deteriorating PC performance, lost devices, virus infections, online scams, or simply becoming uncomfortable with the level of personalization in online ads and websites. Many users have suffered one or more of these incidents.
Accordingly, the top priorities for CDLP measures center on protecting PCs from viruses and malware and safeguarding ecommerce and ebanking transactions. Maintaining unique and complex passwords for each account and blocking access to phishing and sites that host malware are also very important.
Trusted Providers
When it comes to who consumers trust the most to meet their CDLP requirements, security technology vendors are the clear top choice, cited by one-third of respondents. Device or software vendors follow, mentioned in just over one-quarter of the interviews.
In terms of technologies, consumers are most willing to pay for VPN, secure home networks, and antivirus. For any given CDLP technology, between one-third and one-half of consumers opt for a free solution.
Spreading the Word
Reaching the market is also a challenge: Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and relatives is the most frequent trigger for adoption of CDLP technology. Pre-installing solutions on new devices is also a dependable route to drive adoption.
Conversely, online advertising and news articles seem to have a limited impact. The techie uncle of the family can be as effective at driving purchase decisions as any glossy ad splash. This is a challenging audience to market to.
The European CDLP market surpassed $2.1 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 3.7% into 2029. Difficult digital experiences and a rising level of concern about the risk and exposure in consumers’ digital lives can drive adoption of premium CDLP solutions.
Nevertheless, CDLP vendors must improve awareness and understanding of their paid solutions and subscriptions. They may need to rethink their approach: Does the security message need to be simplified? Can the use of the products be more intuitive and automated — even invisible? What is missing in the education? Do consumers understand that if the product is free, they’re the product?
Security technology brands are trusted — and those companies need to find ways to leverage that trust through the word-of-mouth channel more effectively and generate a flywheel effect.
