Over half of the UK’s business IT networks (51 percent) were breached during 2012 due to employees using their personal devices at work, according to research carried out by Virgin Media Business.
Some 500 British CIOs were questioned on the pitfalls of the consumerisation of IT and bring your own device (BYOD) schemes for the survey.
It was also revealed that networks were more likely to be compromised in larger organisations with SMEs experiencing 25 percent fewer security breaches.
However, Tony Grace, chief operating officer at Virgin Media Business, said that businesses shouldn’t be too concerned with the results.
“Last year was clearly a bumpy road for companies introducing personal devices at work. That’s natural enough as no-one has so far been able to come up with the magic solution,” said Grace.
“CIOs shouldn’t see this as a burden and in 2013 they can take the lessons learned and turn these personal devices into business enablers to really help drive the bottom line.”
The research also highlights that tablet sales over the Christmas period were up 112 percent from last year, which means a huge number of new devices are likely to enter the office in the New Year, and this could mean more breaches in 2013.
“With sales of tablets expected to have gone through the roof over Christmas, it looks like personal devices in the workplace is here to stay,” said Grace.
“But with just a fifth of large firms having a BYOD policy, businesses will continue to experience security breaches until connectivity, security and user policies are put in place.”
At the end of last year Blue Coat’s Mobility Study found that most organisations allow employees access to company email (83%) and instant messaging (56%) on personal devices, but far fewer open up ERP (31%), sales force automation (24%) and supply chain management (19%) applications to mobile devices that aren’t corporate-owned.
