Interviews

Data security and the rush for mobility

by Mark Rowe

Data security is forgotten in the rush for mobility, writes Stephen Midgley, Vice President, Global Marketing at Absolute Software.

The majority of businesses have admitted that they do not have the adequate technology in place to prevent themselves against a data breach. These findings from Experian and the Ponemon Institute paint a worrying picture for the future of data security across businesses large and small.

Trends like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and mobile working are moving at such a pace that companies employ them without thinking about the very serious security risks that they pose. Businesses are at risk of falling behind their competitors, or losing loyal customers, if they fail to keep up with the latest technology. They also put themselves at risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches should they fail to put a proper security process in place before each update.

In this rush to make data easily accessible, many organisations have left their virtual filing cabinets wide open, providing hackers with a tantalising opportunity to access corporate data. Given the challenges IT directors face around BYOD, it is perhaps then unsurprising that the majority of companies are ill-equipped to protect themselves against a data breach, with only 36 per cent of those surveyed in Experian’s research feeling confident that they could trace a breach should one occur. Further to this, only 25 per cent believed that they could tell if a data breach had been fully contained or not.

It is worrisome just how quickly an organisation can lose control over its own data, a problem which is exacerbated by the rise in mobile devices and data. This only reinforces the need for a comprehensive Data Loss Prevention policy. However, when employee mobility first exploded within corporate IT, DLP technology struggled to keep up. This is because most traditional DLP solutions provide a server-based model of data protection. This makes little sense when you consider that the devices storing the data are often outside the office and off the corporate network altogether. The explosion of mobility in recent years has even put formerly secure organisations at risk. Industry analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2017, over half of the world’s companies will have adopted BYOD, with even heavily regulated industries opening the door to mobility.

The challenge with a mobile workforce is the potential to lose track of devices once they’re off the network. Ideally, a DLP solution should be designed to remain with the device regardless of user or location, and even in spite of efforts to remove the software client from the device. Endpoint security solutions should be able to provide this type of persistent connection, ensuring IT is always able to monitor and secure the endpoint (and the data it contains). By providing IT with insight to the status of each device as well as the ability to monitor the movement of specific corporate data (regardless of user or location), your organisation will have the necessary keys to keep its virtual filing cabinet firmly locked against all intruders.

Visit http://www.absolute.com/en

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