Tag: tablet security

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.

The company has focused this new release on increased levels of visibility and control with advanced threat protection.

One of the industry leaders in secure direct to cloud network for global advanced protection and policy enforcement, Zscaler, has just announced the release of its new mobile security solution.

This release has widened the Zscaler Network benefits in a number of ways that they believe are highly important.

The benefits of the network are now broadened to include centrally managed advanced mobile security threat protection, in addition to real time visibility and granular policy controls for smartphones and tablets that have been implemented as a part of environments that are BYOD, corporate issued, or hybrid.

The company also announced new mobile security partnership with Mobile Device Management (MDM).

They explained that this helps with mobile security integration in order to complement auditing and provisioning capabilities. According to the Zscaler CEO and founder, Jay Chaudhry, “Security appliances have become irrelevant in securing mobile users since mobile traffic and cloud applications often bypass appliances completely.”

He went on to state that MDM solutions were only the first step that has been taken to better configure and manage smartphones and tablets and that Zscaler is the natural path ahead for providing mobile security through the inspection of all content over these devices, policy enforcement, and making certain of visibility.

IDC has stated that a top mobile security concern among 68 percent of organizations that are IT controlled is malware. Zscaler’s own research suggests that browsers generate under 40 percent of traffic over smartphone and tablet devices. In fact, the largest amount of traffic comes from apps.

This means that a sizeable share of the mobile security risk comes from apps on these devices through the access and communication to third party servers of the location of the user, his or her device type, data from contact lists, and information from calendars. Though it was the internet through browsers that was once the greatest concern, when only desktops and laptops were being used, apps have changed the landscape for protecting devices against digital threats and risks.