Mobiles Might be the Next Biggest Security Threat to Businesses

The family of mobile devices may not be so happy by what is being predicted about them. Recent research has labelled them as the biggest enterprise security threat of 2014.

It is not the first time that mobile devices have been treated as a security threat to individuals and businesses. Taking Android for instance, given its mammoth popularity and its gripping market share, it has always been the favorite spot for hackers. But now, mobile devices are being dubbed as the greatest IT security threat that businesses may have to face. With the BYOD (bring your own device; lets employees use their personal mobile devices at work) trend rising in popularity, 75% of IT professionals have the same opinion. This is in stark contrast with 2010, when only 9% of IT professionals felt the same.

According to Gartner, by 2017 about 50% of all organizations will fully embrace BYOD. Yet, if we speak of the current situation, about half of IT executives have no kind of mobile device management (MDM) in place which can manage employee-owned mobile devices. To add to this, about 86% of companies do not follow a mobile security policy.

The heavy proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets that have occurred in the last few years have skyrocketed the BYOD trend. And with no MDM in place, nor any robust end-point security solution, enterprise security becomes a looming concern.

Highly sophisticated attacks such as Advanced Persistent Threats, which until now primarily targeted PC desktops and laptops, have started to hit mobile devices as well. These threats are using such devices as entry points to a targeted corporate network.

If we boil down this entire discussion to a couple of chunks, there are two factors every enterprise must focus on – mobile device security for employee-owned-devices, and a secured end-point environment. Multilayered security solution should be the choice of weapon against cyber threats that are evolving and bettering with time.

Data Source:
https://mashable.com
https://www.forbes.com
https://www.networkworld.com

Rajiv Singha