Of the 15 nations and territories surveyed, the figure is highest in India where 66% admitted they have or would contravene a policy banning the use of personal devices at work.
The survey, conducted by Vision Critical on behalf of Fortinet, polled over 3,800 active employees in their 20s about their perspectives on the bring your own device (BYOD) trend, its impact on their work environment, and their approach to personal and corporate IT security. The 15 nations and territories included in the survey were the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the UAE, India, South Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong.
The survey confirmed that BYOD is a mainstream activity among employees in their 20s. Nearly three quarters of respondents across all territories already regularly engage in the practice. More importantly, 55% of respondents view using their device at work as a "right" rather than a "privilege."
“The security issue becomes more complex in a BYOD world because these are people’s personal devices”, said Kevin Flynn, product manager at Fortinet.
“The personal devices are accessing the corporate network. So authenticating the person and encrypting the traffic that is coming from these personal devices to corporate are things that people will have to deal with. If they don’t want to deal with it, then the IT managers should simply reject the connection”, Flynn told Infosecurity.
When asked about policies banning the use of nonapproved applications, 30% of respondents admitted they have or would contravene policy. In addition, 69% of respondents confirmed they are interested using their own custom applications at work.
The survey also uncovered resistance organizations might face with regards to implementing security on an employee’s device. The majority of respondents consider themselves – not the company – to be responsible for the security of the personal devices they use for work purposes.