22 Jun 2010

Mobile devices 'not getting protection'

Businesses have been advised that they should look to step up protection for mobile devices given the growing popularity of these items.

Alex Donnelly, portfolio manager at Damovo UK, said mobile data management could be one option to help safeguard confidential information on mobiles, as the same policies that apply to in-house IT infrastructure should now be put in place for mobile systems also.

He commented: "With mobile device management, IT departments can now encompass mobile devices within the same policies as other computer users so whatever is allowed on a desktop machine can be allowed on a mobile device."

According to study by Credant Technologies, 11 per cent of users protect their mobile devices with passwords, while 52 per cent of respondents do not encrypt their mobile data.

Furthermore, it showed that the different types of information stored on mobiles ranged from intellectual property (67 per cent), customer data (40 per cent) and employee details (26 per cent).