Mobile tops enterprise security concerns

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Protecting data  against theft and inappropriate disclosure, securing mobile devices and providing remote access security are amongst the leading concerns for Australian IT managers in 2011 according to a new security survey commissioned by WatchGuard Technologies, a global leader of business security systems.  

Forty-seven percent of the 157 IT managers surveyed cited prevention of theft and inappropriate disclosure as their number one IT investment driver for the year ahead. Running a close second at 44 per cent was the need to provide security for an increasingly mobile workforce.   Other drivers for investment included compliance, prevention of unauthorised employee access to data and safe access to social media.

Mobility took the top two places in the list of security priorities for 2011 with 65 per cent nominating the need to secure mobile devices such as personal digital assistants, smart phones and memory sticks as their most important task and 57 per cent stating that their greatest priority is remote access for employees.  Network access control (52 per cent) and threat detection and monitoring (50 per cent) also continue to be a priority for many organisations. The four least important priorities for 2011 are identity management, incident or attack response, extranet security, and regulatory compliance.

More than one in five organisations stated that email encryption is now a requirement for their business. This likely to be in part a response to the increasing need to protect data in transit due to employee mobility.

Although it doesn't appear on this year's list of security concerns, social media use within business is on the rise with 82 per cent of organisations allowing employee access to sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Streaming video is also proving popular with 76 per cent of businesses allowing employee access to streaming sites such as YouTube.

“The priority for IT managers is to adapt organisational security measures to suit the new mobile hardware environment and the biggest challenge is to prevent both intentional and unintentional data leakage. The tools to achieve this do exist but right now most organisations are still in a state of catch up.  Over the next year there will be a big focus on putting in place mobility strategies and tools, after which we anticipate attention to turn to the bandwidth and security issues of social media,” said Scott Robertson, ANZ Regional Director, WatchGuard Technologies.