Dive Brief:
- A study released by Enigma Software found the American cities most targeted by malware in 2015 were Little Rock, Tampa, St. Louis, Orlando and Denver.
- In 2015, those five cities suffered malware infection rates at least eight times the national average, according to Enigma.
- The amount of malware Little Rock saw was 1,412% above the U.S. average. Tampa’s was 842%.
Dive Insight:
The Enigma researchers did not know why the five cities were targeted more than others.
“[T]here are so many different ways that infections can end up on computers that it's tough to make any generalizations about why certain folks in certain cities seem to have more than others,” said Enigma senior vice president of technology Patrick Morganelli in a statement.
CIOs should urge employees not to click on ads or use unfamiliar websites to help avoid becoming victims of malware. In August, CloudLock, a Massachusetts-based security firm, released a study that found that just 1% of employees are responsible for 75% of cloud-related enterprise security risk. Such users often send out plain-text passwords, share files, accidentally downloading malware, click on phishing links, use risky applications and reuse passwords.
