Thursday, 9 February 2012
Careless employees boost risks with tablets and smartphones, says survey
The popularisation of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets has increased the level of data security risks faced by companies. And careless employees, rather than hackers, present the biggest threats to their networks where mobile data is concerned.
These are some of the conclusions of a survey carried out with 768 IT professionals in five different countries that focused on the new risks posed by the connection of mobile devices to corporate networks.
Nine out of ten companies surveyed said that employees connect personal or workplace mobile devices to their networks, and almost two thirds of them have noted an increase in IT security threats in the past two years.
Of these, 71% believe that mobile devices have contributed to the higher number of security incidents they faced in the period.
The risk is deemed significant as a high proportion of the companies surveyed reported that employees store sensitive information like customer data (47%), network login credentials (38%) and confidential notes (28%) in their devices.
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Devices that run the Android operating system, created by Google, are seen as the most risky for corporate networks.
Of all respondents, 43% said Android poses the greatest security risk, followed by Apple iOS, which runs on devices such as the iPhone smartphones and the iPad tablet, with 36%. Smartphones that run Blackberry's proprietary operating system were identified as the most risky by 22% of respondents.
Some 72% of the companies surveyed said that careless employees have a greater impact on the security risk of mobile devices, against 28% who pointed the accusing finger at hackers.
The ratio of companies worried about employees was higher in the UK (79%) and lower in Germany (55%).
Not surprisingly, the lack of awareness about the issue among workers was pinpointed as the main reason why mobile data presents new risks. This was closely followed by insecure web browsing.
Insecure Wi-Fi connections, lost devices and the download of rogue applications also rate high in the list.
The survey was conducted by Dimensional Research, a California-based IT research company, and sponsored by Checkpoint, a maker of security software.
The companies surveyed are based in the UK, Germany, Japan, the US and Canada.
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