One-third of employees leave business information, including access details, unprotected on their personal digital assistants (PDAs), according to a survey on PDA use commissioned by Pointsec Mobile Technologies.
The survey found that people often download all their personal and business data onto their PDAs – much of which is unencrypted and unprotected by passwords. Typical information held on PDAs includes company data, personal finances, tax information and the names and addresses of business contacts. One-third of PDA users also store PINs and passwords unprotected on the devices.
Nearly three-quarters of companies have no specific security policy for mobile devices, despite the fact that 40% of users have lost a mobile phone, and one-quarter have lost a laptop or PDA. Moreover, nearly half of PDAs are uninsured, and only 2% of users insure the information they hold.
The most common place to lose a mobile device (phone, laptop or PDA) is in a taxi (40%), followed by bars, restaurants and nightclubs.
The survey of 283 users also found the most common way people use PDAs is as a business diary (85%), as a business address book (80%), as a personal address book (79%) and as a personal diary (75%).
“During the next four years, email will unquestionably become more deeply entrenched, more valuable, and, therefore, more critical to the well-being of the organisation,” says Matt Cain, vice president with Meta Group’s Technology Research Services. “By 2007, email priorities will have changed dramatically from existing concerns such as spam blockage and policy enforcement, to a focus on stability and security.”
The top 10 email concerns organisations will need to address by 2007 (in order of importance) are: stability, security and hygiene, centralisation, encryption, records retention, mailbox overload, mobility, upgrades, rightsizing and knowledge management.
