Consumerization, also known as ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD), is an effect of the move towards mobile and cloud computing. Employees use mobile devices both in the workplace and ‘on the road’; and employers are allowing them to use their own devices, or devices of their own choosing. These tend to be laptops/netbooks and increasingly mobile phones and tablets.
They are the same devices that people use for social networking and personal web browsing, as well as purely business purposes such as business email. “These times of rapid technological change within organiZations,” says the report, “are putting immense pressure on technology professionals to manage and retain control of the data entering and leaving their organizations. Businesses that can accomplish this while continuing to realise the benefits that consumerization can bring will be best positioned for success.” But it goes on to suggest that companies are currently placing too much emphasis on preventing staff distractions, and not enough emphasis on maintaining company security.
The Trend Micro research shows that 83% of surveyed businesses allow the use of mobile devices; 54% providing access to the corporate intranet, and 11% allowing access to corporate strategy and planning documents. But only 10% of companies allow employees to access mobile games. The clear implication is that business considers the distraction of playing games to be more worrying than allowing access to confidential business data. Considering the volume of mobile devices that are lost or stolen, and the threat that they could be used to gain access to corporate servers. Trend believes that this is the wrong emphasis.
“Companies need to wise up to the different threat levels of an employee wasting time on social media sites,” says Cesare Garlati, director of consumerization at Trend Micro, “versus an employee losing an entire new business pipeline, or exposing the soft underbelly of the organization’s business systems, by leaving their mobile device in a pub or on a train. There’s also a significant level of ambiguity when it comes to who is responsible for managing the security of personal devices.”