Small businesses lack the security knowledge to protect their mobiles
Whilst smaller businesses are keeping pace with mobile adoption trends they don't always have the security knowledge needed to protect themselves.
This is among the findings of a survey by Kaspersky Lab which asked 3,900 IT professionals worldwide about the challenges encountered by their businesses over the last year.
The results show 34 percent of very small businesses (VSBs) adopting mobile technology in the past year, almost as many as enterprises at 35 percent. VSBs actually reported six percent more mobile integration than small businesses with 26 to 99 employees and two percent more than large businesses with between 1,500 and 5,000 employees.
Yet despite these adoption rates only 31 percent of VSBs listed securing mobile devices as one of their top three priorities for the next year. Plus only 28 percent thought that BYOD brought increased security risks to their business as compared to 52 percent of large businesses.
Evan Munno, Manager of North America Public Sector Sales at Kaspersky Lab says, "Is it possible that VSBs are overlooking employee-owned mobile devices as a security risk? This seems like a particularly troubling possibility, given that VSBs and their limited budgets are most likely to view employee-owned devices as a cost-savings measure and gladly welcome these devices onto their networks. Common threats from employee-owned mobile devices include malware or rogue applications connecting to the company’s network via the employee's device, or company data disappearing along with a lost or stolen employee device".
To achieve mobile security on a limited budget, Kaspersky recommends that employees need to be educated to develop a security mindset and that basic anti-theft technology be used so that data can be wiped from lost or stolen devices. It also suggests that small businesses should keep things simple to avoid implementing complex security systems.
The full report is available on Kaspersky's website as is more information about the company's Small Office Security product.
Photo Credits: Slavoljub Pantelic/Shutterstock