"This is the top threat organisations should be considering as most people in business have smartphones nowadays, and this presents an attractive target for cyber criminals," said Nigel Stanley, practice leader at Bloor.
Research has shown that there has been a huge increase in the number of attacks aimed at mobile phones in the past year, and that is expected to grow exponentially in the coming months and years, he said.
The cost of intercepting GSM calls is falling all the time and it is relatively easy to create and distribute Trojans disguised as games for mobile phones than can be used to steal user information, said Stanley.
In the run-up to last year's Infosecurity Europe event the show organisers conducted a survey which took in responses from 1,000 enterprises and found that large swathes of enterprise staffers are using their smartphones to access their email.
"With the Apple iPhone 4 now firmly in the smartphone spotlight this year, and with Google Android coming up in the fast lane with more than 70 000 apps, it will be interesting to hear how IT professionals can defend the latest generation of mobile handsets that are every bit as powerful as some of the desktop computers of just a few years ago", said Claire Sellick, event director for Infosecurity Europe.
"It's clear that today, more than ever, enterprises now face the issue of workers using their smartphones, as well as their laptops, whilst on the move", she added.
This story was first published by Computer Weekly