Half Of Lost Or Stolen Mobile Devices Store Sensitive Company Data

Mobile devices are coming to work in droves, and they're being lost or stolen en masse, too: Four in 10 organizations say some of their mobile devices have been lost or stolen, half of which housed business-critical information, a new study says.

The study includes findings from surveys of senior IT decision-makers and end users worldwide, conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Carnegie Mellon University and McAfee on the mobile security and consumerization of IT. About half of the 1,500 respondents across 14 countries say they are "very" or "extremely" reliant on mobile devices, and nearly seven in 10 organizations say they rely more on these devices now than 12 months ago.

The good news is that 95 percent of organizations have mobile security policies, but the bad news is that only one in three employees are "very aware" of these policies. And 63 percent of these laptops, tablets, external drives, smartphones, netbooks, and USBs are employed for personal use as well as business use. The breakdown: Seventy-two percent use personal laptops for work; 48 percent, personal smartphones; 46 percent, personal USBs; 33 percent, personal external hard drives; 19 percent, personal netbooks; and 10 percent, personal tablets.

Jamie Barnett, senior director of mobility product marketing for McAfee, says mobile devices will be the next frontier for malware and other attacks. The report did not go into any abuse of data on the lost or stolen devices.

"There's a ton of concern both from individual users and IT organizations about mobile devices being lost [or stolen] and what happens to the corporate data on them," Barnett says. Around 75 percent of the end users surveyed for the report say they are somewhat or very concerned about data loss due to theft, while some 54 percent of IT staffers were, she says.

Security policies for these devices are all over the map, Barnett says. "Policies are both set and enforced differently," she says. Among the typical policies are rules for what a device can be used for; how the company monitors the end user's communications on the device; device parameters for accessing the corporate network; and technical specifications, such as encryption and password complexity.

The report says more than one-third of the lost device cases came with a financial loss to the organization, and two-thirds of those companies have upped their device security in the wake of a lost or stolen one.

Around 50 percent of users store passwords, PIN numbers, or credit card information on their mobile devices, and less than half say they do weekly backups of data on their mobile devices.

"We're transitioning from the notion of a lifelong, long-term employee to more of a contractor type of employment: I'm an individual employee coming in with my 'kit' of stuff -- my personal database, my knowledge, my own technology, and my own [mobile] devices. Organizations need to welcome them in with their 'kit,' and then at the end of the relationship let those employees go with their kit intact, but also be able to claw back the corporate data that belongs to the organization."

The full report, "Mobility and Security: Dazzling Opportunities, Profound Challenges" is available here (PDF) for download.

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