Security policies are only effective if employees adhere to them

John Kendall talks about mobile security and how trends like BYOD are altering the security landscape. Excerpts

On Mobile Security...

More than half (56%) of organizations surveyed in the Unisys consumerization of IT study conducted in partnership with Forrester Consulting, reported that the security continues to be the greatest concern when allowing employees to access business data via a mobile device at workplace.

However, most organizations (78%) are relying on passwords-a relatively primitive solution, to secure their mobile devices and applications.

Security policies are only effective if employees adhere to them. Most organizations have security policies in place, yet only 57% of the surveyed employees say they are aware of their company's security policies.

Those uninformed workers could unintentionally breach the company security policies. In addition, about 9% of employees say that they sometimes ignore or work around their company's security policies. Rather than rely solely on controlling access to data, organizations should consider securing the data itself via encryption. In this way, even if the wrong people gain access to data, they wouldn't be able to read them.

How is BYOD altering the enterprise IT organizations?

With the rapid proliferation of consumer-style mobile devices, platforms, and applications in the workplace, the type and the number of threats that mobile users encounter has grown exponentially.

The most common threats to mobile security include malware, loss, and theft of mobile devices and increasingly, exploitation, and misconduct on the part of employees. Organizations need to ensure that they are monitoring and supporting all company-liable and employee-owned devices 24x7 as to prevent data breaches, while ensuring convenience and ease of access to the enterprise network. This requires a user-centric solution that manages, monitors, and secures mobile devices across platforms in a cost-effective manner.

Another point to keep in mind is that managing mobility covers more than the device-it should also cover the applications that run on the devices. Many apps running on mobile devices used in the workplace have not been vetted as ‘safe' for devices used to access sensitive corporate resources. These ‘BYOD apps' bring a two-fold security risk: Sometimes easily downloadable apps can be malicious vehicles for network breaches and data theft.

To avoid negative consequences of employees using unauthorized software, organizations can create a company ‘app store' that contains approved, secure software-either developed internally or purchased from a third party-to safely provide employees with the capabilities they need to do their work productively.

What are some of the unique value proposition you bring to table?

We offer tools for improving employee productivity as well as strengthening customer engagement. We consult with clients to assess their mobility needs, develop mobile applications, protect them by authenticating the identities of mobile users, and provide a range of services to help IT service desk operations that improves the productivity and up-time of mobile end-users.