Small Businesses Lack Proper Security Standards

April 26, 2019

More than three-fourths of small businesses (84 percent) include social media integration or messaging features on their app to keep users on their app for a longer period of time, according to a survey from Clutch.

Key survey findings include:

Less than half of small businesses (42 percent) offer personalized experiences for their apps, such as customized push notifications, discounts, and recommendations.
Small businesses are investing in emerging technologies to create more interactive app experiences. One-third of businesses integrate artificial intelligence (33 percent) such as chatbots or voice assistants and augmented reality (30 percent).
Nearly all small businesses (98 percent) claim they protect consumer app user data, but only 41 percent require users to make a password and 40% encrypt user data.
More small business apps support Android (69 percent) than iOS (66 percent) platforms, though iOS is regarded as safer.

Small Businesses Prioritize Social Media and Messaging Integration in Mobile Apps

Small businesses prioritize mobile app features that encourage community engagement, the survey also found. Nearly all small businesses (84 percent) use social media integration or messaging features. Broken down, almost half of small businesses (44 percent) incorporate social media into their mobile apps while 40 percent use messaging features.

Ransomware and the propulsion of the extortion economy has rapidly eclipsed into a national priority. Recently, we observed the catastrophic impact of a widescale ransomware attack impacting gas pipelines and raising national gas prices overnight.