Are gadgets causing security problems for your company?
Many of us walk round with a host of gadgets about our person – but could these be causing harm for the companies we work for? According to new research, more workers than ever are plugging portable devices into company networks – with the resulting risk of viruses and the threat of data theft.
The DeviceWall Security Attitudes Survey 2006 from Centennial Software revealed that 70 per cent of workers now plug a USB drive, MP3 player, PDA or other portable device into a computer connected to the company network on a daily basis and 88 per cent plug in a portable device at least weekly. And not many firms are paying attention to it. The most common device to be connected to the network was the USB drive – used by 38 per cent of respondents. Also popular were PDAs (21 per cent), digital cameras (15 per cent), mobile phones (14 per cent) and MP3 players (7 per cent).
Around 40 per cent of respondents thought their company had no measures in place to manage the threat of devices, and of those companies that did have a policy, almost half didn’t implement it.
"USB drives are now available with 64 GB of memory – more than your average laptop holds – which could be used by a disgruntled employee to download an entire customer database or over two million Word documents," said Andy Burton, CEO at Centennial.
Centennial software website
USB devices:
The 64GB USB drive
England World Cup USB drive
