Businesses risk failure to comply with privacy and data protection laws due to the rise of"regulated data"being accessed via smartphone and tablet devices.
So says a new report by independent research firm Ponemon Institute and security provider Watchdox,which suggests there's a security knowledge gap with regards to accessing data using mobile devices.
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The research classes regulated data as"sensitive and confidential data that organisations are legally required to keep safe and secure".Such information includes private health information,financial details including credit card numbers,and employee records.
The report covers the findings of a survey of 798 IT professionals.More than 80 per cent of respondents didn't know how regulated data is stored on mobile devices or in the cloud,putting their organisations at a high risk of breaching regulations.Further to that,most organisations have weak controls in place to protect regulated data on smartphones and tablets,with just 12 per cent of those surveyed utilising a mobile device management(MDM)system,while almost three-quarters relied on manual means of protecting data.
"Regulated data isn't subject to a lower standard of protection just because it ends up on a mobile device,"said Ryan Kalember,chief product officer at WatchDox.
"This study clearly shows that IT departments must understand the risks and be more proactive to accommodate mobile productivity while still protecting the organisation's data."
The Ponemon Institute also identified that despite two-thirds of respondents stating that their organisations must comply with state privacy and data breach legislation,fewer than one in five were aware this extends to the protection of regulated data on mobile devices.
Mobile device loss is becoming an increasingly common form of data breach,with the Ponemon Institute suggesting that organisations have experienced an average of five smartphone or tablet losses in the past two years.
Another report by Ponemon Institute recently suggested the average cost of a data breach for a UK organisation now stands at over£2m,with human error responsible in the majority of cases.
