IT risks in US companies remain high
In a report, the US antivirus software company PC Matic criticizes the lax handling of passwords and sees corporate networks in danger.
U.S. businesses and citizens continue to bear a high risk of becoming victims of cybercriminals. This is shown by the Annual report of the cyber security company "PC Matic".. The report summarized and analyzed the results of an August survey of nearly 1,000 Americans about their password habits.
Risky handling of data
Accordingly, employers and private users continue to apply lax password policies and procedures. This is especially true when compared to the 2021 survey. PC Matic therefore believes many citizens and companies are still at high risk of easily falling victim to cybercrime.
35 percent of Americans don't know when they last changed their passwords or have never done so, according to the survey. Companies have not improved their password policies since last year's survey and continue to be quite lax in their handling. Nearly 20 percent of employers still do not require their employees to change their passwords regularly.
Private mails as a threat
Nearly 55 percent of respondents have never changed their private WLAN password - down from 60 percent in 2021. 40 percent say they use the password lock function on both work and home computers. This number remained nearly the same as last year. The same is true for the 46 percent of employers who do not require their employees to use a virtual private network (VPN).
In addition, more than half of respondents access personal email accounts at work, just as they did in 2021. PC Matic sees this as an imminent threat to corporate networks.
Already in 2019, companies had to bear costs of around two billion Swiss francs due to cybercriminal data theft.
