74% believe mobile devices increase security incidents

The number of personal mobile devices connecting to corporate networks has more than doubled in the past two years, according to Check Point.

74% of UK businesses (compared with 71% internationally) believe mobile devices have caused an increase in security incidents, citing significant concerns about the loss and privacy of sensitive information stored on employee devices.

This information includes corporate email (accessed on 79% of devices), customer data (on 47% of devices), and network login credentials (on 38% of devices).

Smartphones and tablet PCs continue to proliferate in corporate environments. While businesses are accepting this trend, IT administrators struggle with securing the abundance of devices and operating systems, while also protecting their organization against data loss and the rise in mobile threats.

Key findings:

• Rise in mobile devices connecting to the corporate network – 92% of UK businesses surveyed allow mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets connecting to corporate networks, with 66% of respondents seeing the number of devices more than double in the last two years.
• Most common mobile devices and their security risks – Apple (30%) and Blackberry (29%) were the most common types of mobile devices connecting to corporate networks, followed by Android (21%). Nearly half of respondents (43%) also believe Android devices pose a larger security risk to the mobile enterprise.
• Employee behaviour impacts security of mobile data – The majority of businesses believe the lack of security awareness among employees as the greatest factor impacting mobile data – followed by mobile web browsing (61%), insecure Wi-Fi connectivity (59%), lost or stolen devices (58%) and malicious mobile application downloads (57%).
• Correlation between rise in mobile devices and security incidents – 74% of businesses believe mobile devices have contributed to an increase the number of security events in their organizations within the past two years.
• Many mobile devices store sensitive customer and business data – Personal and corporate owned devices often store and access a variety of sensitive information including email (79%), customer data (47%) and login credentials (38%) for internal databases or business applications.