Ponemon Institute and Accellion, Inc. have conducted new mobile research and have found that employees are participating in risky mobile behavior, with nearly 90 percent being able to access confidential information on mobile devices. The new workplace of today requires solutions which will allow employees mobile workflows that are able to introduce the security risks.
The study,
The Security Impact of Mobile Device Use by Employees, also indicated that only 20 percent of survey respondents say they have received security training for mobile content access and management in the workplace and of those, 74 percent say it was not effective in reducing the security risks created by the use of mobile devices.
Unapproved mobile apps was also highlighted within the study. A total of 66 percent of respondents have downloaded and used mobile apps that do not have the approval of their company. 19 percent of respondents made sure the apps they downloaded did not contain viruses or malware and 22 percent of respondents think such behavior puts their company at risk
Productivity resulted at 62 percent with direct and convenient mobile access to corporate information as being essential. The remainder 38 percent said the use of mobile devices makes them more efficient and the time it takes to do their job is reduced by an average of 30 minutes.
Employees are unaware of risks such as using unapproved apps at work. To improve the environment, the study results also found that productivity is important. Employees are using their mobile devices to be more productive, however the users did deny putting their company’s confidential information at risk when using BYOD.