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Businesses lax in mobile technology security: Survey
Businesses may have openly embraced mobile technology to enhance themselves, but they remain lax with respect to the security side effects that are part and parcel of mobility, a recent survey shows
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usinesses may have openly embraced mobile technology to enhance themselves, but they remain lax with respect to the security side effects that are part and parcel of mobility, a recent survey shows.
A survey by security software company Symantec, involving 1,878 enterprises across 29 countries, showed a majority of local enterprises fell into the 'innovator' category for their willingness to integrate mobility into their practices.
Marie Pettersson, senior product marketing manager for Asia Pacific and Japan, said that enterprise mobility ranged from providing employees with devices configured to the companies overall IT infrastructure to launching mobile applications for use by customers.
'Innovators embrace change and want to try new things very early or even too early,' she said.
The survey showed 55 percent of Indonesian innovators saying that embracing mobility was worth the risks entailed.
'Specifically for Indonesia, mobility can cost enterprises US$185,000 per incident'
The survey also showed 83 percent of innovators were internally motivated to adopt mobility as it helped them expand their business. The number closely matches the 86 percent global figure.
Pettersson said that marketing departments, for example, were equipping their teams with devices to access real time sales numbers.
The survey also found that 85 percent of the local innovators pursued mobility to meet demands from within the enterprise or customers.
Employees, for example, wanted bosses to make corporate e-mail accessible through mobile devices to enable message checks.
Customers expected services such as mobile transactions.
Mobility does not come entirely without risks, making firms more vulnerable to data loss or digital payment fraud.
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'Specifically for Indonesia, mobility can cost enterprises US$185,000 per incident,' Pettersson admitted.
As much as 37 percent of Indonesian businesses believed they had incurred direct financial losses, either in the form of money or goods, due to risks of mobility, with another 35 percent saying that they suffered loss productivity.
Enterprises have to therefore not only outline mobility policies, but also enforce them.
'The key is in the enforcement of policies on mobility,' she said, adding that 60 percent of Indonesian companies have used technology to enforce mobile policies.
Nabila Alsagoff, chief operating office at Doku, a digital payment gateway, said that mobile payments posed greater security challenges than desktop-based, online payments.
'This is where the challenge in mobile payments is, because security protocols from credit card companies have to be met,' she said.
However, the layered protocols ' such as verifications seals ' do not always suit the much lighter mobile platform.
'More things can be done to bridge the mobile experience while making sure that no security breach occurs,' she said.
