- Digital fatigue amongst employees creates an Enterprise occupational hazard
- Employees, consumers remiss in basic security, forcing IT to add layers of complexity
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Oct. 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — New research from Uniti’s award-winning residential and business internet business segment Kinetic Business shows the impacts “fatigue” can have on enterprises, revealing businesses may be less prepared than they think as they face consistent challenges in protecting their companies. A culprit: employee inaction.
The 2025 Kinetic Digital Safety & Privacy Report reveals people often neglect to take basic protective steps such as regularly updating passwords and reporting phishing attempts, which reduces the effectiveness of many companies’ overall cybersecurity strategies.
The research demonstrates why enterprises need to add stronger, more sophisticated layers of protection, such as managed network security services, to guard against ever-growing digital threats, which consistently seek to exploit small gaps and seams where there is no overlap.
“Digital fatigue is turning ‘best practice’ into background noise,” said Michael Flannery, president of Uniti Solutions, Kinetic Business’ sister business unit. “The data shows fatigue on the part of end-users when it comes to cybersecurity. We know that when an individual’s guard is down, risk increases, regardless of a business’s award-winning and benchmarked digital hygiene efforts. The responsibility to protect companies, their customers’ information, and employee data falls almost exclusively on resource-strapped IT departments, meaning they need advanced turnkey cybersecurity that doesn’t rely just on user actions, but a solution that’s built into networks.”
In the face of daily corporate security breaches costing companies billions in revenue and damaged reputations, companies often complement their IT-driven enterprise security with effective, yet basic security measures at the user-level, such as regular password updates to access company portals, intranets, and business data. Yet these measures aren’t always taken, and the policies can go unenforced.
The survey data shows only a third (37%) of respondents update their passwords every few months, while only a quarter (27%) read privacy policy updates, even though individuals are aware of the ubiquity of attacks and have personal concerns about threats. Respondents shared their security concerns including:
- Large data breaches (72%)
- Storing personal data outside of the U.S. (69%)
- News coverage of cyberattacks (68%)
- Targeted advertising (64%)
- Development of AI (61%)
The survey also shows consumers in rural and suburban areas are also more uneasy about emerging technologies versus urban areas. Respondents who live in rural towns or suburbs are less trusting of AI (68% vs 38%) by a margin of roughly 2-to-1. Alternatively, about a third (29%) of Gen Z consumers are more trusting of AI than Millennials (20%), Gen X (13%), and Boomers (14%).
To provide customers with peace of mind that their data is secure, enterprise businesses need to ensure their IT solutions simplify security management.
With Uniti Solutions, mid to enterprise-level businesses can combine leading network technology with comprehensive security via a cloud-native and fully managed Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Security Service Edge (SSE) services. Businesses leveraging these solutions can optimize network performance, gain the flexibility and scalability to grow, and leverage enterprise-grade protection against cyberthreats. Additionally, the technology is backed by Uniti Solutions’ white glove support from its Cyber Security Operations Center (CSOC).
“Businesses now understand it’s not ‘if’ they will be a target of a cyberattack—it’s when,” said Flannery. “With our solutions, companies can shift the cybersecurity burden from employees and their customers, many of whom aren’t taking the appropriate precautions anyway, and feel more confident about web browsing, data loss protection, end point protection, and threat prevention.”
Read Kinetic’s full report here.
About Uniti Solutions:
Uniti Solutions, a business unit of Uniti (NASDAQ: UNIT), delivers customized, cloud-enabled connectivity, communications and a full suite of managed connectivity, collaboration, and network security solutions reaching nearly 95% of business, state and local government and education customer locations in the U.S. Additional information about Uniti Solutions is available at solutions.uniti.com. Engage with us on LinkedIn.
Media Contact:
Megan Krtek
Megan.krtek@uniti.com
