Mobile Employee Behaviors Put Enterprise Data at Risk

Fiberlink, the leader in cloud-based enterprise mobility management (EMM) announced the results of its online survey that reveals employees are unknowingly putting enterprise data at risk. 

Among 2,064 U.S. adults surveyed about their mobile behavior, over half (51 percent) of employees use their personal smartphones and/or tablet devices for work purposes. However, overwhelming majority, do not use security solutions that control corporate data from enterprise data. They are engaging in risky behavior. http://www.maas360.com/news/press-releases/2013/fiberlink-survey-reveals-mobile-employee-behaviors-put-enterprise-data-at-risk/

For example, among employees who use mobile devices for work  the survey showed:

• 25 percent have opened/saved a work attachment file into a third-party app (e.g., QuickOffice, Dropbox, Evernote).
• 20 percent admit to having cut/pasted work-related email or attachments from company email to their personal email accounts.
• 18 percent say they’ve accessed websites that are blocked by their company’s IT policy.

While using personal devices for work is a matter of convenience for employees, it’s a matter of security for employers. Top security issues include corporate data leakage, malicious applications, violation of corporate use policies and regulatory compliance, all of which have the potential to compromise enterprise data. In the absence of enterprise mobility management solutions, risky employee behavior on mobile devices, whether accidental or malicious, is inevitable.

Meanwhile, IBM announced that it would acquire Fiberlink Communications, which offers a cloud-based enterprise mobile management (EMM) solution under the brand MaaS360. The acquisition is expected to offer MaaS360 within the IBM SoftLayer cloud infrastructure. Whether this will include the necessary security safeguards needs further explanations. http://www.forbes.com/sites/maribellopez/2013/11/13/ibm-acquires-cloud-emm-vendor-fiberlink/