Data presented by Atlas VPN team, has shown that one in ten businesses globally sell customer data to third parties, which they use to improve and market their products.
The data, which is based on the Kaspersky Global Corporate IT Security Risks Survey, noted that customer data is a valuable commodity to businesses, even as some companies profit from selling such data to other businesses.
Atlas VPN team revealed that the data are from interviews with 5,266 IT business decision-makers from 31 countries globally. The interviews took place in June 2020 and were released in November 2020.
Giving advice on how to better protect these data online, Rachel Welch, COO of Atlas VPN, “Nowadays, people face a challenge of balancing privacy and usability. They cannot control how securely companies store their information or in whose hands their data might end up. However, people can make sure that they limit the information they reveal online.”
He added that using a VPN, reconfiguring your device’s privacy settings, and reading Privacy Policy before you sign up for a new service are just some of the things recommended to protect personal data better.
Meanwhile, the survey reveals that around half of businesses worldwide collect client data. A total of 48percent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) and 52 percent of enterprise representatives reported that their companies gather information about their clients. One-fifth of these businesses (18percent of SMBs and 21percent of enterprises) also sell that data to third parties.
While 24% of SMBs and 21% of corporations do not currently gather customer data, they plan to do so in the upcoming 12 months. A quarter (25%) of small and medium businesses and 23% of enterprises do not collect any customer data. The remaining 3% of SMBs and 4% of corporations do not know whether they collect client data.
Surprisingly, the data also disclosed that companies that do not collect client data suffer less from data breaches as companies that collect client data are attractive targets to cybercriminals and, therefore, always at risk of a data breach.