Tag: mobile security uk

Mobile security is not taken very seriously by British consumers

| September 2, 2014

As the number of cyber attacks over traditional computers, smartphones, and tablets grow, this is worrying.

Technology news reports are continually announcing the latest massive cyber attacks and data breaches, but this doesn’t seem to be having much of an impact on many people in the United Kingdom, as a new survey has shown that many are not taking mobile security all that seriously.

It would be expected that these headlines would cause the average users to take protective measures.

However, this does not appear to be the case. The survey was conducted on behalf of ZenMate by OnePoll. It involved the participation of 2,000 respondents from the United Kingdom. What it determined was that there is an overall apathy present among smartphone users when it comes to their own mobile security. Fewer than half of the people who were surveyed said that they take any action to ensure that they are using protected connections or that they secure their browsing data when using their smartphones.

Over 45 percent said that they didn’t even take the basic mobile security step to use a password to lock their devices.

mobile security and smartphonesWithout even using a smartphone password to lock the device, if that gadget is ever stolen, the thief would be able to gain instant access to any apps, contacts, or other personal data contained within the mobile device. This is quite surprising, when taking into consideration all of the attention that is being received by the prevalence of cyber attacks, overall.

Moreover, with reports that suggest that the GCHQ and the NSA have been monitoring online communications, it would be easy to assume that smartphone users would want to take a few extra steps to remain protected against data theft and other related threats. The results of this survey, however, clearly indicate otherwise when it comes to the typical British smartphone using consumer.

Only 41.5 percent of the survey participants said that they took precautionary mobile security measures, even when asked about their habits when using unsecured public networks. This aligns well with a recent Ofcom report that indicated that people don’t usually think twice about their privacy when they access public WiFi connections.

Mobile security attitudes in the UK remain weak

| November 26, 2013

British consumers carrying smartphones and tablets still do not take adequate precautions to protect themselves.

According to a recent mobile security study that was conducted by Trend Micro, a security firm, many consumers in the United Kingdom who have smartphones and tablets have yet to adopt appropriate precautions in order to guard themselves against the theft of their data.

The survey involved the participation of 2,500 device users throughout the United Kingdom.

The results of this study indicated that 27 percent of the research participants have lost up to three company devices. Another 52 percent regularly carry a device on their person that contains sensitive data from work, which increases the risk that their employers and customers could experience fraud from a mobile security data breach.

This mobile security finding should be taken seriously by businesses in the country.

Mobile Security - UKThe survey showed that 61 percent of the participants who use their smartphones and tablets for work purposes have not even protected those devices with a password. Among all of the participants 20 percent were using their personal smartphones for business reasons, which means that this number of unprotected device users is a considerable one. Among those who have gone to the effort of protecting their devices with a password, 63 percent have used the same one or a similar one across all of their various digital accounts.

Almost one in every three participants said that they use Wi-Fi hotspots on a regular basis. However 56 percent of hotspot users do not check the security of those spaces before they connect. Twenty two percent access their work emails from those locations, while 10 percent access confidential documents in those public connection environments.

This survey indicates that in the United Kingdom, there is a standard of relative carelessness when it comes to their attitude toward mobile security and the link between their behaviors and the safety of corporate data when using their smartphones and tablets for work purposes, said the report. In fact, among the respondents, 44 percent had a greater concern regarding the loss of their own personal content than they had about giving access to sensitive business data to cyber criminals.