Employees aren't just bringing their mobile devices to the workplace—they're living on them. A recent study by Pew Research found that 44 percent of smartphone owners sleep with their devices next to their beds to avoid missing a call, text message, or other update during the night. And IDC Research reports 62 percent of nearly 8,000 18-to-44-year old iPhone and Android users reach for them immediately after waking up.
As smartphones and tablets become constant companions, cyber attackers are using every avenue available to break into them. Many people expect that iPhone or Android devices are secure by default, when in reality it is up to the user to make security configuration changes. With the right (inexpensive) equipment, hackers can gain access to a nearby mobile device in less than 30 seconds and either mirror the device and see everything on it, or install malware that will enable them to siphon data from it at their leisure.
The nature and types of cyber attacks are evolving rapidly, and mobile devices have become a critical part of enterprise cyber-security efforts with good reason. Analysts predict that by 2018, 25 percent of corporate data will completely bypass perimeter security and flow directly from mobile devices to the cloud.
Chief information security officers (CISOs) and other security executives are finding that the proliferation of mobile devices and cloud services are their biggest barriers to effective breach response. In order to secure the corporate data passing through or residing on mobile devices, it is imperative to fully understand the issues they present.