Online Piracy Poses Substantial Malware Threat to Employer Networks via Remote Access

Digital Citizens Alliance, a nonprofit focused on the threats consumers face on the Internet, has released a research survey highlighting a disturbing connection between online piracy, working from home, and employer network security threats.

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans are working remotely. When employees allow piracy devices and apps to access their home Internet connections, they open the door to malware attacks.

Alarmingly, it appears that a significant number of consumers do just that: 1 in 5 of those surveyed admitted to visiting a piracy website, 1 in 10 to using a piracy device.

Home networks that include piracy devices, or other devices running piracy apps, are three times more likely to experience issues relating to malware, which in turn expose the employer networks that they are used to access to cybersecurity risks.

Such concerns are particularly troubling with respect to those employees remotely accessing systems upon which confidential or sensitive data is stored.

Fully half of the respondents with access to such information and piracy devices attached to their home networks had issues relating to malware during the previous 12 months. By contrast, less than 20 percent of those not using piracy devices reported malware infections.