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Mobile Devices Security – Control or Lose All Mobile Device Security – Take Control or Lose Everything Concerned does not Mean Protected
Published Feb 13, 2013
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Businesses are seriously concerned about the security of mobile devices with access to corporate data, but are still slow to find ways of controlling their use. This emerged from a survey conducted by B2B International in July 2012.
It is really striking that the pressing problem of safely using mobile devices in corporate networks was only ranked third by company employees responsible for critical business decisions, including those related to IT security, although more than half (55%) of the same specialists taking part in B2B International survey confirmed they are seriously concerned about the security of mobile devices.
Corporate IT and business professionals were asked to identify the three tasks they consider the most important for their IT personnel in order to build a secure IT infrastructure. Mobile device security scored relatively poorly – just 13% regard working with Mobile Device Management systems (MDM) as among the three most critical tasks. Protecting confidential information was chosen by 27%, making it the second most important task. The top issue was preventing cybercriminals from infiltrating the corporate network – this was highlighted by 31% of those surveyed.
Since cybercriminals are first and foremost looking for confidential information, every possible effort should be made to ensure its safety. It’s really important that businesses nowadays understand the need for barriers to keep cybercriminals away and apply a variety of effective measures to meet their data protection requirements: backup copying, combatting data leakage caused by staff, repelling cyber-attacks and many others. But it is worrying that so many businesses underestimate the crucial importance of MDM technologies, since the main asset being protected here remains sensitive corporate information – almost a quarter (23%) of respondents said they had lost business data due to the loss or theft of mobile devices.
MDM enables businesses to:
• Apply restrictions to the installation and launch of software on corporate mobile devices. Corporate networks can be greatly harmed by the unfettered addition of unregulated new software.
• Support remote administration for smartphones and tablet, so that access can be blocked and information deleted if the device is ever lost or stolen.
• Make sure devices are protected with PIN codes and applications that access corporate data are protected with strong passwords.
• Deploy and control configurations and security policies on new employees’ mobile devices quickly and flexibly.
• Prevent sensitive corporate information leaks by application data control and encryption.
• Make sure high-quality anti-malware protection is used, especially for Android devices.
The survey, involving over 3,300 IT specialists in 22 countries worldwide, was conducted in conjunction with Kaspersky Lab. The participants represented all business sizes: small (10-99 computerized “seats” and non-phone end-user devices with Internet access), medium (100-999 seats), and enterprise (1000+ seats). The full B2B International survey results are available at http://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/pdf/kaspersky_global_it-security-risks-survey_report_eng_final.pdf.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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