Cybersecurity Experts to Target Employees Working from Home

BY Rachel Cagle
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Working from home is becoming a growing trend among Americans. With today's technology, it's easy enough to do and saves employees the hours they'd spend on their weekly commutes to and from the office. The problem with working remotely is that, if employees decide to work from a coffee shop or other business offering free Wi-​Fi for all, they become a cybersecurity risk for their company.

A recent survey of business owners conducted by Nationwide found that 83% of small business owners let their employees work from home or other remote locations as needed. However, only 50% of these owners seem to understand the risk of remote working and have updated their remote work cybersecurity policy. "Failing to continually revise remote work policies in the growing digital workplace could put those business owners at higher risk of a cyber-​attack," says Nationwide.

Remote working situations aren't the only potential threat to small businesses. In-​house cybersecurity breeches are all too common. According to the Nationwide survey, "Only 4% of business owners have implemented all of the cybersecurity best practices and recommendations from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Further, one in five small business owners have not committed their employees to formal cybersecurity training, despite the reality that employees represent one of their largest threats."

The Risks of Lacking in Cybersecurity

As a result, 65% of small businesses have been cyber attack victims. 33% have gotten viruses on their computers and phishing has also been an issue for 29%.

Cybersecurity should be a top priority for small business owners for a few reasons. One, cyber attacks are costly to recover from financially. Two, the business' reputation could be put at risk depending on how the attack effects customers' interaction with the company's website. Three, it's so simple for companies to regularly update their software to keep cyber attacks at bay. At the end of the day, it's cheaper and better for the company's growth overall to take the steps to make sure their cybersecurity is foolproof.

When Employees Working from Home need a short break from work, there are a number of ways they may be spending their time on their computers. According to AudienceSCAN, within just the past month, these consumers have used the internet to check the news and weather, bank, play online games and look up sports scores. If they're not careful, they may stumble onto some questionable sites with terrible outcomes for their employers. Cybersecurity companies can let companies know how their services can provide help through digital ads. Last year, these consumers took action after receiving email ads (49.4%), finding ads on daily deals websites such as Groupon (42%), and either seeing an ad on their mobile smartphone apps or receiving an ad via text (37.9%). At least 32.3% clicked on text link ads on websites.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. In addition, AdMall contains industry profiles on information technology, cybersecurity, as well as lead lists at the local level. Media companies, sales reps and agencies can access this data with a subscription to AdMall from SalesFuel.


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