60% of Companies Vulnerable to BYOD Risks

A survey from Acronis International GmbH and the Ponemon Institute LLC reveals that a majority of companies are putting  critical data at risk by not having secure BYOD policies in place.

By ignoring simple security steps and employee BYOD education, companies are jeopardizing their confidential data, exposing it to theft, corruption, hackers, malware and more.

  Have policies to protect corporate files in public clouds?

Acronis’ 2013 Data Protection Trends Research, which evaluated responses from more than 4,300 IT professionals in eight countries, discovered that:

Big Gaps in BYOD Policy

• Almost 60% have no personal device policy in place, and, among those with policies, 24%make exceptions for executives, who may handle even more sensitive data. As a result, these organizations are increasingly vulnerable to data loss and serious compliance issues.
• A number of organizations are still in denial when it comes to BYOD trends, as more than 30% surveyed actually forbid personal devices from accessing the network.
• Nearly 80% of organizations haven’t educated employees on BYOD privacy risks.

Simple Security Precautions Falling to the Wayside

• Just 31% of companies mandate a device password or key lock on personal devices, and only 21% perform remote device wipes when employees leave the company, drastically increasing the risk for data leakage.

Businesses Underestimate Dangers of Public Clouds

• Corporate files are commonly shared through third-party cloud storage solutions such as DropBox, but 67% of organizations don’t have a policy in place around public clouds and 80%haven’t trained employees in the proper use of these platforms.

Businesses Fear Apple Devices
Complicating BYOD Security

• While 65% of organizations will support Macs in the next year, more than half (57%) say compatibility and interoperability are still big obstacles to getting Macs compliant with IT, which puts data stored and shared across the corporate network and on Apple devices at risk.

"Personal devices have permanently and positively changed the workplace, particularly in the ways employees collaborate, work remotely and interact with company data," said Anders Lofgren, director of mobility solutions, Acronis. "BYOD is a huge opportunity for companies, but our research shows troubling signs of negligence in the face of these dangers. However, with policies and solutions that manage the flow of data between multiple devices and environments, companies can practice safe BYOD with confidence."

Matching BYOD Productivity With Policy
To optimize BYOD, protect the bottom line, and avoid data loss and serious compliance issues, organizations should take steps to ensure employees are trained in safe BYOD practices, that personal device and public cloud use are monitored and managed, and that effective data protection solutions are in place to prevent data loss. These are the critical steps to achieving safe BYOD.

The survey was conducted by the Ponemon Institute across eight countries during March and April 2013. 4,374 IT practitioners were surveyed in mid to large sized organisations across a variety of industries.