Acronis Survey Shows Nearly 60 Percent of Companies are Vulnerable to BYOD Risks

Businesses are Ignoring BYOD Policies, Simple Security Steps and Employee Education, Research Shows
By: Acronis
 
LONDON - July 17, 2013 - PRLog -- London, UK – July 17, 2013 – A UK survey from Acronis® and the Ponemon Institute reveals that the majority of companies are putting critical data atrisk by not having policies in place to protect it once it leaves a company, whether that be through BYOD or public cloud-based file sharing. By ignoring simple security steps and employee BYOD education, companies are jeopardising its confidential data, exposing it to theft, corruption, hackers, malware and more.

Acronis’ 2013 Data Protection Trends Research, which evaluated responsesfrom more than 570 UK IT professionals, discovered that:

1.     There Are Big Gaps in BYOD Policies

·      Almost 60 percent have no personal device policy in place, and, among those with policies, 23 percentmake exceptions for executives, who may handle even more sensitive data. As a result, these organisations are increasingly vulnerable to data loss and serious compliance issues.

·       A number of organisations are still in denial when it comes to BYOD trends, as just under a quarter (23 percent) surveyed actually forbid personal devices from accessing the network.

·       Nearly 80 percent of organisations haven’t educated employees on BYOD privacy risks.

2.     Simple Security Precautions Are Falling to the Wayside

·       Just 21 percent of companies mandate a device password or key lock on personal devices, and only 18 percent perform remote device wipes when employees leave the company, drastically increasing the risk for data leakage.

3.     Businesses Underestimate the Dangers of Public Clouds

·       Corporate files are commonly shared through third-party cloud storage solutions such as DropBox, but 69 percent of organisations don’t have a policy in place around public clouds and 80 percent haven’t trained employees in the proper use of these platforms.

4.     Businesses Fear Apple® Devices Are Complicating BYOD Security

·       While 59 percent of organisations will support Macs® in the next year, more than half (61 percent) say compatibility and interoperability are still big obstacles to getting Macs compliant with IT, which puts data stored and shared across the corporate network and on Apple devices at risk.

“Personal devices have permanently and positively changed the workplace, particularly in the way employees collaborate, work remotely and interact with company data,” said Rick Powles, managing director UK & Ireland, Acronis. “BYOD is a huge opportunity for companies, but our research shows troubling signs of negligence in the face of these dangers. However, with policies and solutions that manage the flow ofdata between multiple devices and environments, companies can practice safeBYOD with confidence.”

Matching BYOD Productivity with Policy

To optimise BYOD, protect the bottom line, and avoid data loss and serious compliance issues, organisations should take immediate steps to ensure employees are trained in safe BYOD practices, that personal device and public cloud use are monitored and managed, and that effective data protection solutions are in place to prevent data loss. These are the critical steps to achieving safe BYOD.

Resources:

·       Download the BYOD Survival Guide eBook here (http://promo.acronis.com/NAM-EN-DPT_BYOD_Guide.html)

·       Find the Acronis BYOD Safety infographic here (http://www.acronis.co.uk/promo/byod-infographics/)

·      For more information on Acronis mobility, click here (http://www.acronis.co.uk/enterprise/products/mobilecho/)

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Notes to Editors:


The survey was conducted by the Ponemon Institute across eight countries during March and April 2013. 4,374 IT practitioners,over 570 were from the UK were surveyed in mid to large sized organisations across a variety of industries.

About Acronis

Acronis delivers reliable, easy to use backup and disaster recovery solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments to individuals and businesses in 90 countries worldwide. Acronis’ innovative technology enables organizations to reduce risk against the loss of valuable data, control management and storage costs while responding to the always-available, everywhere access demands of users. With proven technology for data migration and disaster recovery for hybrid environments, and secure file-sharing and synchronization for the home and business, Acronis is enabling new levels of collaboration  through trends such as secure file sync and share and BYOD. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.co.uk. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis_UK.

Acronis® and Acronis Backup & Recovery® are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. in the United States and/or other countries
End
Source:Acronis
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Tags:Acronis, BYOD risks, Storage, Cloud, Survey
Industry:Technology, Mobile
Location:London City - London, Greater - England
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