By Jo Best, 22 November 2004 10:25
NEWS UK businesses have the got the fear when it comes to securing their employees' mobile devices but they're still seeing mobiles as a technology - not a business - issue according to new research.
A new report from Dimension Data has found that half of companies say their staff have a poor attitude when it comes to securing their data and devices, with only one in 10 firms having a security manager in charge of keeping mobiles safe, with 84 per cent leaving it to their head of security to take care of.
With over £1bn spent on lost mobile devices a year, companies need to sort out their user education, the report says - but if businesses really want to bring down the cost of replacing their mobiles, they should have a word with their bosses.
According to the report, senior personnel - those with Blackberrys - are the worst offenders when it comes to letting their handhelds go astray.
As well as users' sloppy security, virus writers are increasingly turning their attention to mobiles. Last week saw the emergence of another Trojan targeting smart phones. The virus, Skulls, is disguised as a piece of Symbian shareware and can disable smart phone apps like IM.
So what's the answer to locking down company mobiles? Education, according to Dimension Data's CTO Neil Louw, is key - as is impressing on the company that losing sensitive data and hardware is more than an IT problem.
"Our belief is that this is a business risk issue and needs to be addressed as one," he said. "It's not a technology issue."
With an eye on the future as companies increasingly turn to mobile working - analyst house Meta Group predicts 65 per cent of companies will have gone mobile by 2007 - there's a big opportunity for tech heavyweights to capitalise.
According to Dimension Data's Mobile Working report, Cisco, Nokia and Microsoft will be the future of mobile.
"Those three [companies] are leaders in the space. When demand grows, especially corporate usage... organisations are going to look towards standardisation," he said.
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. Ed L Pulliam
In a recent online article with the title 'Bosses'worst at mobile security', by Jo Best, the use of the term "Shareware" is not correct.
The author says, "The virus, Skulls, is disguised as a piece of Symbian shareware and can disable smart phone apps like IM". In fact, the program you refer to is a freeware add-on, not shareware at all.
The Association of Shareware Professionals [ASP] has fought for years to disentangle the erroneous association of properly obtained software, that happens to be marketed as shareware, with harmful computer code such as viruses and spy ware.
In general, software marketed via shareware channels and commercial software is normally virus-free. Indeed, the basis of shareware marketing is TBYB [try-before-you-buy]. Some of the world's largest software companies, such as Symantec and Microsoft, have adopted the try before you buy concept for the distribution of some of their products, even if they do not choose to use the word "shareware" in their product promotion.
Companies that integrate the shareware marketing method in their core business model [over 10,000 of them!] would no more want to distribute a virus or Trojan than companies distributing by other channels. The try-before-you-buy nature of software marketed as shareware means that our members work very hard at closing a sale with each user by impressing them with how good the product that they're trying is. Distributing software problems and malware invaders doesn't result in a good relationship with our best potential customers.
The ASP is a not-for-profit association of over 1,500 independent software developers, marketers and vendors, most of whom use the try-before-you-buy method of software distribution. For more information on the ASP, visit our consumer information web site at http://asp-shareware.com/ .