49% of UK organisations unable to remote-wipe their mobile devices

The survey for the report - which was carried out by interviewing 300 CIOs in the UK and US employing more than 3,000 people - also reveals that 67% of organisations are more concerned about mobile data security because of the recent WikiLeaks affair.

On top of this, Mformation Technologies, the mobile device management specialist, says that 76% of CIOs are concerned that employee-owned mobile devices entering the corporate network are creating security headaches.

This trend towards consumerisation of the workplace, which Infosecurity has reported on many times in the last year, was picked up on by Todd DeLaughter, Mformation's CEO, who said that, whilst enterprise mobility is a business imperative, it remains a massive risk.

This is, he says, only part of a more complex problem that most businesses face today.

"Attempts to improve the management of mobile devices such as smartphones and more recently laptops, netbooks and tablets as they connect over cellular networks are hampered by a number of challenges", he said,.

"For example, IT strategies such as simplifying management by standardising on specific devices or platforms are regularly overturned by users, who now want to bring their own devices into the enterprise", he added.

According to DeLaughter, whilst it was originally in the mobile phone arena, we are now seeing employees bring in computing devices like the iPad and Galaxy tablets.

Delving in the report reveals that 76% of CIOs say employee-owned mobile devices are creating security headaches, whilst 78% do not know what devices are connected to the corporate network.

As a result, Vanson Bourne's researchers found that 77% of enterprises have no idea what data is on all of these devices.

DeLaughter calls this "flying blind" and says that enterprise IT organisations need solutions that can integrate into existing IT service delivery frameworks and extend them with these new mobile device management capabilities.

"New models such as cloud-based device management from service providers and IT organisations are one route to solve this problem and support this category", he explained.

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