Millennials are a bigger risk to mobile security than other age groups

Around half of the workforce will be millennials by 2020, but according to a new survey by endpoint security specialists Absolute Software they're likely to present a bigger risk to data security.

The survey questioned more than 750 Americans over the age of 18 who work for a company with 50 or more employees and use an employer-owned mobile device.

Whilst 79 percent of those surveyed prefer separate devices for work and personal use, 52 percent do use their work devices for personal purposes and 14 percent believe their behavior puts their organization's security at risk.

Security isn't their responsibility according to 50 percent of respondents and 30 percent believe there should be no penalty for losing company data. It's when you start breaking down the responses into groups that they become really interesting though.

Whilst only five percent of baby boomers compromise IT security the figure jumps to 25 percent for millennials. 64 percent use their work machine for personal use compared to only 37 percent of boomers, and 27 percent have not safe for work content on their device compared to only five percent.

Position in the organization makes a difference too, with those higher up the command chain more likely to be putting data at risk. Of those at a senior level 76 percent admit to personal use, 33 percent to NSFW content and 26 percent have lost a device in the last five years. At the bottom of the executive food chain whilst 51 percent admit to personal use just nine percent have NSFW content and only five percent have lost a device.

"We conducted this survey with the intention of helping enterprises better understand the current attitudes that employees have towards data security and privacy," says Stephen Midgley, vice president, Global Marketing at Absolute Software. "Armed with this information, our customers can consider user behavior as an additional data point in their endpoint security and data risk management strategies".

The report recommends that to stay safe businesses need to implement a security solution on their devices, train employees on best practices and build policies to address risky behaviors. Midgley adds, "Ultimately, everyone is responsible for protecting sensitive business information. Knowing there is ambiguity between how different users may approach this requirement, IT leaders need to provide meaningful guidance and training that reinforces this collective accountability".

The full report is available from the Absolute Software website.

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