The flood of consumer devices connecting to companies’ networks has led to increased security incidents – mainly because of user carelessness, according to a recent survey of IT professionals.
That’s the message from a survey conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by security vendor Check Point.
No surprise here: The use of personal devices on the corporate network is growing rapidly, with 78% of respondents saying there are more than twice as many personal gadgets connecting to their networks now than there were two years ago. That includes 36% who say the use of personal devices has increased five-fold.
And it’s causing big problems — 71% of 768 IT pros surveyed said personal devices have contributed to increased security incidents. That’s mainly because of how users behave with those gadgets, as 72% say careless employees have been a greater security threat than hackers.
Specifically, the top factors IT pros blamed for weak security of mobile devices were:
- Lack of employee awareness about security policies (62%)
- Insecure web browsing (61%)
- Insecure Wi-Fi- connectivity (59%)
- Lost or stolen mobile devices with corporate data (58%)
- Installation of corrupt apps (57%), and
- Lack of security patches from service providers (53%).