The Reality of BYOD Risk: 40% of Government Staff Ignore Policies
A recent report by mobile security firm Lookout, identified that nearly 40% of (US) Government staff ignore policies prohibiting mobile device use. Wow, the level of entitlement there is off the charts. The report essentially outlined that these risky and unsanctioned mobile behaviors are widespread in the Government and quite rampant in organizations across the country.
On Friday, September 25th our show takes a look at the rise of Mobile Content Management (MCM) in the industry and whether the onboarding efforts are taking security seriously enough. Is providing your staff and editors with the tools to be productive remotely heaping too much risk than is worth the convenience?
The numbers in the report are staggering to say the least. The blatant disregard for the security of the data for personal convenience is alarming. While this is a focused study on Federal agencies, it seems that the sentiment would cross over into many organizations where mobile content management is prevalent.
We’ll let you draw your own conclusions but would certainly enjoy hearing your feedback in the comments below.
Here is a snapshot of the data.
| 50% |
use their personal device for work email. |
| 49% |
use their personal device for downloading work documents. |
| 17% |
store work related documents on personal file sharing apps. |
| 24% |
send work documents to personal email accounts. |
| |
|
| 40% |
state that pre-existing rules and regulations prohibiting BYOD use at work have little to no impact on their behavior. |
| 7% |
have rooted or 'jailbroken' their devices that they bring to work. 16% of those are using Gov't issued devices and 22% are regularly connected to federal WiFi. |
| 65% |
of the devices above have access to work email. |
| 57% |
of the devices above have access to work documents. |
| |
|
| 37% |
are willing to sacrifice government security in order to use their personal smartphone at work despite the obvious security concerns. |
| 48% |
are aware of policies that restrict use of personal devices to store work related information or files. |
| 30% |
do it anyway! |
Those numbers are shocking as is the complete disregard for security and policy in favor of self-serving convenience. This should indicate a real weakness in the general population towards appropriate device use.
Read the full article and download the report
here.
Join us for what will be a great show on balancing security with convenience.
Jade Carter
Jade is a content writer for CMS-Connected, facilitating the needs of the company blog. Bringing 10 years of Search and Digital Marketing to the table, he strives to build informative, relevant and fun editorial posts for the blog feed. Jade is an ultra distance (26.2 miles+) trail runner and lives to run trails in and around his home town of Victoria, BC.