Cisco released findings from two global studies that provide a vivid picture of the rising security challenges that businesses, IT departments and individuals face — particularly as employees become more mobile, blending work and personal lifestyles throughout their waking hours.

Despite popular assumptions that security risks increase as a person’s online activity becomes shadier, findings from the Cisco 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) reveal that the highest concentration of online security threats tend to target legitimate destinations visited by mass audiences — such as major search engines, retail sites and social media outlets.

Cisco found that online shopping sites are 21 times as likely, and search engines are 27 times as likely, to deliver malicious content than a counterfeit software site.

Security risks rise in businesses because many employees adopt «my way» work lifestyles in which their devices, work and online behavior mix with their personal lives virtually anywhere — in the …