Aruba Networks, Inc. is calling for businesses worldwide to take action as a new mobile security risk report reveals that businesses are ill prepared for the high-risk, high-growth mind-set of the #GenMobile workforce, creating alarming disparity around security practices in the corporate world. The chasm that is exposed between age, gender, income level, industry and geographic location has a direct effect on the security of corporate data.

The (Running the Risk) security threat study which questioned over 11 500 workers across 23 countries worldwide; showcases that employee attitudes are swaying towards a more sharing, security-agnostic workplace. The study shows that highly regulated and tech savvy industries, higher-earning males, and emerging markets pose the greatest risk to enterprise data security.

Aruba believes three key trends highlight how #GenMobile is paving the way for risk-prone behaviour in the workforce – which is both good and bad for business.

• Sharing becomes the norm: Five in ten South Africans share their work and personal devices with others regularly. Nearly a fifth of South African employees don’t have passwords on devices, with 55% claiming not to be worried about a threat, 28% feeling passwords are too restrictive and 17% making the decision to allow them to share their devices more easily with others.
• Security agnostic attitudes arise: A third of South African workers admit to having lost data due to the misuse of a mobile device. Security ranks fifth behind cost, operating system, brand and battery life when #GenMobile is making buying decisions for new devices. 82% assume their IT departments will keep them protected.
• Self-empowerment succeeds: Over half (57%) of South African workers today said they are willing to disobey their boss to get something done, another 58% say that mobile technologies enable them to be more productive and engaged, and 84% are willing to perform self-service IT.

“#GenMobile workers are flexible, transparent and collaborative, willing to take action to drive productivity and business growth. That said, these employees are also far more willing to share company data, and are notably oblivious towards security,” said Matthew Barker, regional manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at Aruba Networks.

However, as this high-risk culture enters the enterprise, the report finds an alarming level of disparity among industries, individuals and countries when it comes to the treatment of mobile devices and data.

The Discrepancy between Industries

• Finance is leaking data: Believe it or not, 39% of respondents from financial institutions admit to losing company data through the misuse of a mobile device, which is 25% higher than the average across all industries surveyed. The public sector (excluding education) is the least likely to report lost or stolen data.
• High tech is at high risk: High tech employees are nearly two times (46%) more likely than hospitality or education workers to simply give up their device password if asked for it by IT.
• Teachers need a lesson on security: The study reveals that educators are 28% more likely to store passwords on a sheet of paper compared to those in high tech. Educators also score the lowest compared to all other industries when asked if they password-protected their personal smartphones.

Spotting the Risky Individual 

• Males more prone to data theft: Men are 20% more likely to have lost personal or client data due to the misuse of a smartphone, and 40% more likely than females to fall victim to identity theft.
• Younger employees wreak havoc on company security: Respondents over the age of 55 are half as likely to experience identity theft or loss of personal/client data compared to younger employees. The age bracket with the highest propensity of data and identity theft are employees between 25-34 years old.
• Larger salaries linked to greater security risk: Employees earning more than $60K are more than twice as likely as employees earning less than $18K to have lost company financial data and 20% more likely to lose personal data due to misuse or theft of a mobile device. Ironically, when offered money, those that earn greater than $75K were three times as likely to give out their device password as respondents making less than $18K.

Mapping Global Risk Trends

• High-risk, high growth: The emerging and growth markets of China, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are found to exhibit the highest risk behaviours worldwide, suggesting that greater risk-taking is linked to increased growth and opportunity as much as it relates to security risk.
• West is playing it safe: To support this connection, the least risk-prone countries are the westernised markets, including the USA, UK and Sweden. South Africa ranks eighth out of 23 countries when it comes to exhibiting high risk behaviour.

Businesses lacking adaptability

The study suggests that South African businesses may not be prepared for what lies ahead with almost half (48%) not having any type of basic mobile security policy in place. Nearly a fifth (18%) of employees does not use password protection on their devices, suggesting that employers aren’t enforcing some basic security practices.

Aruba contends that if businesses strategically measure and intelligently manage their security, the more flexible, open methods of working and information exchange that #GenMobile workers bring can drive new business innovation.

“Organisations should strive to build a secure and operational framework for all workers, rather than stifle them. These trends underline that #GenMobile employees continue to be a growing part of the everyday workforce, but they also bring with them some risky behaviours,” says Barker.

“In a contemporary connected world, firms need to nurture creativity, while at the same time minimise the risk of data and information loss. As a result, employers need to take an adaptive trust approach to connectivity and data security, identifying individual worker preferences that factor multiple layers of contextual information in order to build secure infrastructures around them.”

Run Your Risk

Using this global data, Aruba has developed an online Security Risk Index tool to allow organisations to benchmark their Mobile Security risk levels relative to organisations in their country and industry.