A new survey has indicated that many professionals think that malware on smartphones and tablets will be problematic.
As the number of smartphones and tablets sold every year continues to break all previous records, experts in mobile security threats are now expected to be the biggest problem that businesses will be facing throughout this year.
This risk is worsened as the number of people who use their devices for both business and personal reasons climbs.
According to the results of a recent study that was issued by Lumension, an IT and mobile security threats protection provider, and which was conducted by the Ponemon Institute, concerns regarding malware on smartphones and tablets are considerable ones. In fact, the vast majority of IT security experts – 75 percent – have expressed that cyber attacks on smartphones and other types of mobile devices will be the primary concern for businesses throughout 2014.
Many participants also revealed that mobile security threats had already been a problem in 2013.
Among the IT security professionals, 68 percent stated that their own devices had already experienced direct contact with malware at some point in 2013. Comparatively, in 2010, when a similar survey was conducted, there had been only 9 percent of the professionals that had reported that they were viewing smartphones and tablets as any kind of risk to the company.
Larger businesses typically have more significant measures in place to help to keep the devices clean and their data safe. However, a sizeable percentage of smaller companies have a vulnerability of which they may or may not be aware regarding the use of these devices by their workers.
According to the Ponemon Institute’s Dr. Larry Ponemon, “We’ve seen the threat landscape fundamentally change over the last five years.” He added that the trending data that they have collected is reflecting a growing concern regarding the broadening use of smartphones and tablets on the network, to the point that this represents the largest risk to IT.
Ponemon also added that when it comes to mobile security threats “unfortunately, 46 percent of our respondents report no efforts are in place to secure them.”
