Enterprise IT Professionals Consider Mobile Security as Top Priority

Posted by AdamChriss on July 15th, 2014

Mobile Security is increasingly becoming a top concern for chief information officers and information technology teams worldwide. Recently, More than 300 chief information officers and information technology professionals who participated in the 2014 InformationWeek Mobile Security Survey, voiced their opinions. Notably a trend was that IT teams were concerned over the potential vulnerabilities regarding unauthorized access to company information via mobile devices; less concern was placed on the hardware type of mobile devices.

According to the survey, securing highly confidential company information is rated as very important by 68% of the respondents. This response is notable 21 points ahead of two other options: “Securing devices themselves” & “using anti-malware or MDM client software”. Furthermore, it was found that 72% of respondents consider that their foremost concern for mobile security is the compromise of company information as a result of a lost or stolen employee device.

Furthermore, it was found in the study that nearly half of the respondents confidently find that their current security platforms and services employed are effective at monitoring and protecting data. However, 40% of respondents are concerned with employees who may send confidential company information to cloud storage services. This leads to a tricky predicament for the information technology team. As bring your own device (BYOD) policies are becoming increasingly promoted and prevalent in the enterprise, the security holes and hurdles mobile platforms give arise to can be difficult to tackle at company-wide scale.

Furthermore, questions that information technology teams should discuss and find definitive answers to include: Should we permit personal devices to connect to the internal company network? Should we block off access to certain highly sensitive files in the cloud? What are the most appropriate mobile security measures? Peaklight research analyst Otis Bard chimes in on the concerns, “Enterprises must take the proper precautions to prepare for company data actions that their employees might put them in. Mobile security platforms and services fulfill that crucial need.” One notable respondent to the InformationWeek Mobile Security Survey stated, “Many of these questions ask if we 'allow' types of behavior. We don't. However, the fact that we have nothing in place to prevent it constitutes permission."

According to the survey, about 50% of respondents strictly prohibit company information to be stored on employees’ personal devices. However, of the subset of folks who do allow such behavior, they require that the company data be enclosed in a container. With the rise of BYOD policies, the enterprise utilization of company data is bound to shift to adopt more data in the container type methods. 

In summary, information technology professionals in the enterprise are forcefully facing difficult mobile security issues. Given the consumer adoption of mobile phones, tablets, and wearable computers which is growing at light speed pace – it’s important the enterprise protect their assets and sensitive information. Its important the IT teams look to mobile security platforms and services to assure high levels of protection as seamlessly as possible, to avoid potential company-marring data leaks, threats, and attacks.

Author :

Adam Chriss, a proud contributing author and a freelance writer with interests in various subjects and writes articles on several subjects including Cloud Technology, Cloud Security, Cloud Data Security, Mobile Security etc,.