Almost ten million mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops have been lost by employees over the last year.
According to research by EE of 2,000 consumers, one in five (19 per cent) of employees say they lost their mobile device on a work night out, while one in six (16 per cent) left it on public transport. Devices were also commonly left in taxis and public toilets. Of those lost, for every ten devices four were not password protected.
Gerry McQuade, chief marketing officer for business at EE, said: “More often than not, employees will use their personal mobile device to access company emails, documents or presentations, unaware that they may be putting sensitive data at risk. What’s important is that business data is secure, whether accessed from a company owned device or not.
“With the arrival of 4G, businesses of all sizes now have an opportunity to become genuinely mobile by giving their employees secure access to company information and business applications regardless of the device they’re using and the operating system the device is running.”
EE announced the launch of its Super Secure 4GEE bundles, with offering available for basic security for configuring email and WiFi, automatic password protection for mobile devices, provisioning business applications and the ability to remote lock or wipe devices, and for enterprise which offers advanced features for application security, content security and access control. Also offered is a regulated bundle for legal, financial and Government organisations whom demand high-level data security, offering customised control of business devices and content plus the ability to lock down individual mobile devices.
EE said that these bundles all comprise simple, centralised tools that allow organisations to keep corporate and personal data separate, making it easy to manage any corporate owned personally enabled device policy.
EE has partnered with MobileIron to make mobile security easier to deploy and manage. This allows administrators to configure and selectively manage mobile apps, content and devices, automatically enforce policies on all mobile devices and retire devices that are lost or stolen.
John Theobold, CISO at NTT Com, told IT Security Guru that the message doesn’t often get through and often presenting an ultimatum is the best option. “The minute you say you have to pay for the next device, the loss will reduce. As soon as you change the ethos people will sit up and listen,” he said. “Awareness has been very static in the past so you have got to engage with employees and that is the way to do things.”
