Australian researchers state that to many companies are failing to move quickly enough on cybersecurity threats connected to the increase in the use of personal mobile devices in the workplace. This is based on the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) philosophy. One of the drivers for this, according to the firm Workspot, is a boost in productivity from BYOD, since employees are using technology that they are most familiar with.
With the BYOD concept, employees use personal devices that are connect to their organizational networks to access work-related systems. Personal devices tend to include smartphones, personal computers, tablets, or USB drives.
The assessment, which comes from Queensland University of Technology, highlights a growing series of security and privacy risks linked to BYOD. This includes employees inadvertently adding malicious codes to computer networks; employees deliberately stealing data; and employers tracking employees’ locations during work and non-work hours, and gaining access to their worker’s private emails and photographs.
These concerns are drawn from a study into two multinational companies and questionnaires involving 550 employees of these companies, based in locations like U.S., Germany and South Korea.
Investigative researcher Dr Kenan Degirmenci says: “The breakneck speed of digital transformation brought with it opportunities as well as threats”, and with this too many organizations are failing to think through joined up policies and a holistic approach to cybersecurity.
While companies that allow BYOD practices tend to have mobile device management (MDM) in place for the purposes of monitoring, managing and securing devices, in too many instances these protocols are lacking sufficient security. It also stands that employees need to be aware of how their own privacy may be compromised by their employer.
