Tag: mobile security news

The release revealed that cybercrimes have cost Canadians $3 billion over the last 12 months.

According to the latest Norton Report regarding mobile security, cybercrime in Canada has cost $3 billion over the last year, which is an increase of more than double over the $1.4 billion that had been recorded over the previous year.

The software security maker, Symantec, reported that more than 7 million people have been victims.

The U.S. based company shared in its 2013 security report that more than 7 million people in Canada have been cybercrime victims in the last 12 months, alone. The average cost per victim of these various types of digital crime is approximately $380 percent.

The cost of mobile security crimes per victim has also increased for victims globally.

It has risen to $113 (USD) over the last 12 months, which means that it cost each victim just over $300. The authors of the report conducted a survey of more than 13,000 people in approximately 24 countries around the world. What it determined was that mobile security, cyber attacks, and the sharing of sensitive information are becoming increasingly common.

This increase in cybercrime is occurring throughout many different channels. It involves issues such as mobile security breaches, unauthorized computer access, open Wi-Fi networks issues and identity theft. The report attributes the rapid growth rate to the rise in the use of smartphones and tablets particularly over open Wi-Fi networks.

According to Lynn Hargrove, the director of consumer Solutions at Symantec Canada, “The move to mobile is really one of the core findings that we’ve seen and as people have tablets and smartphones, that’s where the cybercriminals are going.” She also pointed out that people just don’t seem to be taking this mobile security risk as seriously as it really is. She stated that people aren’t securing their smartphones and tablets as widely as they do their desktops and laptops. Computers are far more likely to have antivirus programs than smartphones.

The online and mobile security report indicated that 60 percent of device users in Canada don’t even realize that there are security programs that are designed for use by their tablets and smartphones. Only one in four smartphone users have some level of free security software and 32 percent of them have experienced a cybercrime in the last year.

The majority of companies have not fully implemented a policy for the use of wireless devices.

According to the results of a study that have recently been released, only 14 percent of companies have put a fully developed mobile security policy into place for their computer networks.

At the same time, the number of threats and incidents within that environment are rapidly rising.

Furthermore, the study also discovered that the majority of the companies that do not have mobile security policies in place also have no intention of limiting the use of personal smartphones and tablets for work-related purposes. The research in question was the Global Corporate IT Security Risks 2013 study From B2B International, which was conducted among businesses worldwide, this spring, in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab.

B2B International’s statement about the mobile security study was that many companies had experienced data leaks.

It revealed that among the respondents of the survey by B2B International, 6 percent of the companies had experienced a mobile security data leakage of confidential information at least once within the previous 12 months. Though this may represent an increase of only 1 percent over the figures from 2012, the attacks on smartphones and tablets led to a larger number of critical data leaks than any of employee fraud (at 4 percent), phishing attacks (at 5 percent) or corporate espionage (at 3 percent).

According to the release regarding the study’s results, “The reason is obvious; more mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – are being used at work on a daily basis. These devices are also often owned by the employees themselves, and so are used for personal as well as business purposes.”

It also pointed out that while the ability to add both corporate and personal data (such as apps and contact lists) on a single device is highly convenient, it also means that there is a considerably higher mobile security risk to the business. Almost 65 percent of the participants in the survey admitted that they allowed their workers to bring their own devices (also known as bring your own device – BYOD – where workers use their own personal smartphones and tablets for work purposes). This is clearly a growing threat to corporate IT infrastructure security when the fact that no protection policies have been put in place.