Costly Achilles heel of employees
IT security company Lookout, together with Ponemon Institute Research, has presented the report "The economic risk of confidential data on mobile devices in the workplace". It calculated that mobile threats could cost a company up to 23.4 million euros. Possible reasons?
This report is not only about the cost to businesses of mobile threats and data breaches, but also about the reasons why many companies do not protect themselves adequately against mobile threats. For this, the Ponemon Institute surveyed 588 IT and IT security experts from US Global2000 companies.
The weak points
The majority of IT and security professionals believe employee mobile devices are vulnerable to hacking (83 percent). Two-thirds (67 percent) of Global2000 companies report that their organization has experienced data breaches resulting from employees using mobile devices to access company data.
The extent of mobile access to corporate data is increasing - by 43 percent from 2014 to 2015. Approximately 56 percent of the data accessible on PCs is also accessible on mobile devices.
In the companies included in the report, employees use about 54,000 mobile devices. Respondents indicate that probably three percent of mobile devices, or about 1,700 devices, are infected with malware at any given time. On average, 26 percent of infected mobile devices are detected or identified.
Rising costs for virus killers
Today, the average total cost that companies spend on these infected mobile devices is 11'3 million euros in total, or 8'430 euros per malware-infected device. If the malware were detected or identified on all 1,700 devices, then the average cost could be 23.4 million euros. These costs are based on the necessary steps that have to be taken after an attack or compromise of a mobile device, for example, to helpdesk support, security support by the IT department, including loss of productivity as well as indirect costs such as image loss!
Other risks
Only 30 percent of respondents say there is a policy in place that governs what types of company data can be stored on mobile devices.
"Employees have continuous access to cloud-based services and demand flexibility. They want to be able to access work apps like Salesforce and personal apps like Facebook at the same time," said Gert-Jan Schenk, VP of Lookout EMEA. "The primary concern for IT security managers is balancing mobility and security. It's critical that organizations get mobile security right from the start, especially with regard to the financial implications and consequences for the company's reputation."
