Security and mobility don’t always go hand-in-hand, which poses a problem for companies seeking to implement bring your own device (BYOD) strategies. Providing employees with easy access to the network and supported applications is great when they need to work on the go – as long as that access isn’t compromised. For more than 700 IT decision makers, BYOD security is a top concern.
NaviSite (News - Alert), a provider of enterprise-class hosting and managed applications, recently announced the findings of a survey of more than 700 IT executives to identify BYOD challenges and the use of Desktop as a Service (DaaS) to overcome these challenges. One key finding: while 80 percent of respondents acknowledge that BYOD has become the new normal, only 45 percent have put a formal policy in place to support it. Another 51 percent are considering the potential of DaaS to access data via mobile devices.
The biggest drawback for many of these decision makers is their concern regarding security. Whether real or perceived, 68 percent are very concerned that they will be unable to fully secure enterprise data on employee mobile devices. Even with this concern, however, only 18 percent felt that BYOD was a primary reason to implement DaaS.
NaviSite aims to address some of these challenges with its NaviCloud ONE, enabling businesses to embrace the BYOD demand. Mobile employees access corporate applications and data from the network with any device without putting the data or the resource at risk. Sensitive data can be centralized and separate from the device so they maintain full control. This approach enables mobile workers to stay mobile, without taking a careless approach to sensitive material.
But is this approach enough? A recent Fiberlink survey suggests that user habits may also need to be addressed. Partnering with Harris Interactive (News - Alert) on the research, the company discovered that employees aren’t always using corporate data the way they should when accessing with a personal device. Unfortunately, use seems to be nothing short of reckless.
Whether users simply don’t understand the risk they are taking or there are no formal policies in place, the reality is that 25 percent of employees have opened or saved a work attachment to a third party app; 20 percent have cut and pasted information from a company email to a personal email; and 18 percent report they have accessed websites normally blocked by their company’s IT policy.
While these uses are certainly treating data recklessly, the bigger concern is the lack of corporate security installed on their devices. If BYOD is to be successful in any environment, security has to be a priority. Without it, the company stands to lose much more than the efficiencies gained with mobility.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey