@Risk

Last month, I reported that many companies are struggling to keep pace with the compliance and risk policies necessary for effective social media governance.

Now, HP has released new global research indicating that organizations also face increased threats from an even more fundamental policy and procedures issue: poor control and oversight of sensitive and confidential workplace data.

According to the new study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, many companies say they have well-defined policies for individuals with privileged access rights to specific IT systems. However, almost 40 percent were unsure about enterprise-wide visibility into specific rights, or whether those with privileged access rights met compliance policies.

The survey, which focused on more than 5,000 IT operations and security managers across the US, the UK, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Spain, also found that: (more…)

Smartphones are embedded into today’s corporate culture. But, if you use your smartphone for both business and personal purposes, you may be putting your company at risk.

A new study from AVG Technologies found that most people are surprisingly indifferent to the many serious security risks associated with the storage and transmission of sensitive data on iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices. For example: (more…)

Today’s workforce is mobile, and these days, it’s becoming more and more common for employees take the office with them wherever they go.

But, does more mobility mean less security? Do mobile workers increase the threat of a data breach at your company?

As you might expect, the answer to both of those questions is “yes.” New survey results reveal that two-thirds of employees expose sensitive data outside the workplace –some even exposing highly regulated and confidential information such as customer credit card and social security numbers. As many as two-thirds (67 percent) of those polled said they had worked with some type of sensitive data outside the trusted confines of the office within the past year, including highly sensitive information such as customer credit card numbers (26 percent), customer social security numbers (24 percent), patient medical information (15 percent) and internal corporate financial information (42 percent).

The Visual Data Breach Risk Assessment Study, conducted by People Security and commissioned by 3M, also found the majority of companies do not have basic policies or measures in place to protect sensitive information from computer screen snooping when employees are working in public places.

Here are a few more findings that I found particularly interesting: (more…)

You check email when you’re on vacation. You bring a company laptop on your trips. Taking “the office” on the road has become so commonplace that these days, we generally don’t think twice about it.

But, a new study from Credant Technologies offers some interesting insights and more than a few words of caution. After all, in some cases, accessing company data from mobile devices can seriously impact corporate security.

Consider these findings. Credant polled 1,000 office workers in London and found that: (more…)

More than half of the workforce is mobile on any given day, according to new research.

The 2009 Total Employee Mobility® Benchmarking Report, released yesterday by Runzheimer International, analyzes the results of interviews with executives from 90 small, mid-sized and large organizations across the U.S.

Researchers found that each business day, some 51% of employees are mobile –meaning they’re traveling, working from a virtual office or driving for business. That’s an increase of 31% since 2006.
(more…)