British firms are vulnerable to data leakage from
insecure mobile workers, according to research fromDimension Data.
More than one-third of mobile workers are left to their own
means to secure IT while away from their desks, and another 5% say
no one is responsible for securing information outside the office,
the study found.
Alastair Broom, Dimension Data's director of security products,
said the problem is not confined to the UK. A recent presentation
at a Harvard
University privacy symposium showed that 73% of companies have
had a loss of data in the past two years, mainly due to the
transfer of information to mobile devices. The most serious was the
26 million records
lost by the US Veterans' Administration.
The study found 54% of UK workers who use a PC at work also work
remotely. Just under one third share the remote computer with at
least one other person in their household, and 40% copy work data
onto USB memory devices. Just over half access company information
from home and a third do it from public places.
Almost a fifth (18%) have disclosed their work passwords to at
least one other person, and nearly a quarter say that their
organisation's security policy is not communicated very well or
does not exist.
"With compliance biting deeper, organisations will be under
increasing pressure to control where their data is and audit its
access and usage," Broom said.