Mobile working is increasingly becoming the norm for many enterprises, with industry analyst Strategy Analytics predicting that there will be 1.75 billion mobile workers by 2020. At the same time, mobile security threats are on the rise: according to the McAfee Mobile Threat Report Q1 2018, 16 million users were hit with mobile malware in the third quarter of 2017. The use of free public Wi-Fi continues to pose the biggest mobile security threat for enterprises. Yet with connectivity being vital to productivity, today’s ‘Wi-Fi first’ mobile worker often turns to free public Wi-Fi as their first port of call. With millions of Wi-Fi hotspots globally, all with varying security credentials, how can enterprises ensure the connections that their mobile workers use are secure? At a time when data protection is paramount, enterprises need to strike a balance between keeping their data and systems secure, while not hampering the productivity of their mobile workforce.
Surveying 500 CIOs and senior IT decision makers from the U.S., U.K., Germany and France, the iPass Mobile Security Report 2018 examines how organizations view today’s mobile security threats and employees’ use of free public Wi-Fi. The report’s findings include the following:
• The majority of CIOs suspect their mobile workers have been hacked or caused a
mobile security issue in the last 12 months
• CIOs have seen the most Wi-Fi related security incidents happen at cafés, airports
and hotels
• CIOs believe mobile security risks have increased due to the rise of BYOD
• Banning employee use of free Wi-Fi hotspots is still the preferred security measure
for most organizations
• Employee VPN usage is on the rise, but the majority of CIOs are still not confident
their mobile workers are using them all the time
