Interviews

Wising up to security

by Mark Rowe

It’s ironic that Mobile World Congress is more than a meeting of the world’s mobile industry – it’s also something of a free-for-all for Barcelona’s petty criminals, writes Derek Skinner, Regional Director, Recovery and Investigative Services – EMEA, Absolute Software.

The event moved from its previous location in the city centre last year because of the high levels of theft and pickpocketing, a lot of it aimed at mobile devices and laptops. Despite the move, nearly 200 attendees last year were victims of crime , and 30 per cent of those incidents occurred on the show floor itself. Even more concerning is that around 80 per cent of these incidents were thefts. The fact that the majority of these thefts will have been of devices used for work – laptops, mobiles and smartphones – demonstrates real premeditated opportunism. What better opportunity to get your hands on a top-end device than when thousands of the globe’s top mobile execs are in town?

For those attending the event, a lost corporate device can be easily replaced. A more serious concern however, is that at an event filled with competing businesses, one lost smartphone or tablet can provide a thief with access to a company’s network and sensitive emails, putting firms at risk of fines of up to £500,000 from the Information Commissioner’s Office. We recently conducted research of office workers in the UK looking at their attitude to protecting their employer’s data and worryingly, given how many people will be descending on MWC this year, over a fifth of employees said that data security is not their responsibility, and a third described the security culture of their workplace as moderate or lax. Even more significant is that 37 per cent of businesses don’t have a formal procedure in place for when a device is lost or stolen. What that means is there are stolen devices out there that haven’t been locked down or disabled, providing access to corporate infrastructure.

These figures show that attendees at MWC 2014 need to be aware of the risk of theft and more importantly, the resulting possibility of data loss. This in particular can have a huge impact on a business so it is vital to put measures in place to secure devices and data.

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