The highest concentration of online security threats are found in major search engines, retail sites and social media outlets vs. pornography, pharmaceutical or gambling sites. That’s the finding of two of Cisco’s most recent security studies, which were released this week.
In its 2013 Annual Security Report, Cisco found that online shopping sites are 21 times as likely, and search engines 27 times as likely, to deliver malicious content than a counterfeit software site. And online advertisements are 182 times as likely to deliver malicious content than pornography.
A second study, the Cisco Connected World Technology Report, found that young workers mixing personal use of their devices with business use raise security risks in businesses because they are so willing to sacrifice personal information for socialization online. More of these young workers – 30 years old or younger — feel more comfortable sharing personal information with retail sites than with …