Security not keeping pace with moving to BYOD

With a shift to remote working many more businesses are embracing BYOD, but a new report from Bitglass suggests that security arrangements are failing to keep pace.

In the study, 69 percent of respondents say that employees at their companies are allowed to use personal devices to perform their work, while 26 percent also enable BYOD for contractors, 21 percent for partners, and some even for customers, and suppliers.

But despite using the technology many are unprepared to balance security with productivity. When asked for their main BYOD security concerns, 63 percent of respondents name data leakage, 53 percent unauthorized access to data and systems, and 52 percent malware infections.

About half of the surveyed organizations lack any visibility into file sharing apps (51 percent), 30 percent have no visibility or control over mobile enterprise messaging tools, and only nine percent have cloud-based anti-malware solutions in place.

"The top two reasons enterprises hesitate to enable BYOD relate to company security and employee privacy," says Anurag Kahol, CTO of Bitglass. "However, the reality is that today's work environment requires the flexibility and remote access that the use of personal devices enables. To remedy this standoff, companies need comprehensive cloud security platforms that are designed to secure any interaction between users, devices, apps, or web destinations."

The full report is available from the Bitglass site.

Photo credit: Sarawut Aiemsinsuk/Shutterstock