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When starting a small business, entrepreneurs have a lot to keep in mind, including cybersecurity. Norton recently teamed up with Sperling's BestPlace to compose a list of the riskiest cities for online activity.
"By looking at data from consumer lifestyle habits as well as cybercrime data provided by Symantec, maker of Norton products, we're able to provide a holistic view of the various factors that put a person at potential risk," said Bert Sperling, founder of Sperling's BestPlaces and lead researcher for the analysis.
Ranking No. 1 on the list is Washington, D.C. The nation's capital ranked highly in every category, which included prevalence of PCs and smartphones, ecommerce, social networking and accessing potentially unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots.
Seattle and San Francisco ranked second and third on the list, respectively. The two cities were both found to have high usage of email and social networking.
Businesses located in cities ranking highly on this list should strongly consider professional liability insurance to cover them given potential data breaches, which could result in costly lawsuits.
Helping businesses with internet security is U.S. Bank, which recently released four new videos on Facebook and YouTube, giving businesses advice on how to limit cybercrime. Among the tips: make sure internet passwords are "long and strong," employing a mix of letters and other characters.
