Mobile Device Data Losses Pose Rising Security Risk: Survey
Mobile devices are increasingly becoming a key security risk for enterprises as employees access sensitive company information using smartphones, tablets, laptops and netbooks. However, most employees are not thinking enough about protecting corporate data when using these devices, a recent survey shows.
One in three employees polled kept sensitive work-related information on their mobile devices, according to a report published May 24 by McAfee and Carnegie Mellon University. Even though 95 percent of companies have mobile-security policies in place to protect enterprise data, two-thirds of employees were not aware of their organizations’ policies, the survey found. Most of the companies reported their employees do not understand how permissions and other access settings on their mobile devices work.
The mobile device problem goes both ways. While many employees use their personal devices to handle work-related tasks, such as accessing corporate email and viewing documents, nearly 63 percent of work-issued mobile devices were being used by employees for personal activities, the report found.
“Devices are no longer just consumer devices or business devices. They are both,” said Richard Power, a CyLab Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University and the primary author of the report.
The survey found that 72 percent of devices used for work were laptops, and 48 percent were smartphones. Just 10 percent of devices used by the respondents were tablets. Almost half of organizations said they were very reliant on mobile devices and 70 percent claimed to be even more reliant than they were 12 months ago.
BlackBerries are no longer the enterprise standard as businesses now operate in a “heterogeneous mobile environment,” the report said.
