Companies fail to safeguard mobile data

UK businesses are failing to encrypt or centrally manage the security of their mobile data, according to the results of a survey of IT security decision makers released today.

The majority of respondents (80 per cent) to the survey stored sensitive business information, including emails and passwords, on their mobile devices. But only 26 per cent of companies encrypted this data.

Results from the same survey conducted by Sybase iAnywhere in 2007 indicated that 60 per cent of companies had sensitive data on mobile devices, of which 45 per cent were encrypted.

Furthermore, 71 per cent of the 154 respondents’ companies relied solely on their employees to undertake security tasks for their mobile data, while 87 per cent were had experienced frustrations using security features on their device.

Although these figures indicated firms were slightly less likely to rely on employees to ensure the security of mobile devices when compared to last year’s overall figure of 76 per cent, Sybase said they still suggested that organisations were continuing to place too large a burden of responsibility for security in this area in the hands of their users, failing automating these processes.

Frustrations centred on password management and convenience, where 39 per cent cited the issues they face if they forget their passwords as being a major problem and 21 per cent said that speed of decryption was an issue.

Mike Oliver, Sybase iAnywhere European mobile management and security marketing manager said the survey findings were concerning: “These results reflect the increasing use of mobile devices, but also continue to demonstrate a worrying decrease in the encryption of the data stored on these devices.

“Of those organisations that are investing in device security, far too many are still relying on end users to take responsibility for security protocols when these should be automated and controlled by central IT,” he said.

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