Smart-phones are set to become the next major security challenge for IT according to a CompTIA survey conducted this year. The survey polled 1070 small businesses in North America and 60% reported they had seen an increase in security issues related to the use of hand-help computing devices over the last year. The concern is if businesses will view the risk as too great a burden to place on their IT departments and will instead ban the use of them within their corporate environments. Many IT services firms are preparing for a whole new generation of security applications for mobile devices and how to secure access.
These handheld computing devices give workers the ability to work while “on-the-go” by allowing access to key information residing back at the work or home office. But, this simple access to information is creating a growing set of security concerns for companies. Mobile users requesting access to the company network remotely is a potential security threat. The fear is that a virus could potentially jump from phone to phone to network much like pc-to-pc worms and viruses have done in the past.
Business-oriented smart-phones come from the manufacturer with decent built-in protection like encryption and firewalls. But, smart phones geared more toward the consumer market have far fewer safety features in place.
To learn more about data security and data protection, click here.
Leave a Reply