With the increasing use by employees in the workplace in BYOD (bring your own devices) businesses face increasing security threats.
Hackers are busy focusing on employees’ mobile devices.
This means your network’s access points aren’t limited to your workstations. Your exposure has doubled with new access points being outside your wired control.
Not to mention when employees lose their smartphones or have them stolen.
So, it’s important to prepare.
Skyrocketing mobile malware threats amid widespread use of BYOD, bring your own devices, started in 2012.
They were on track for a $1.88 billion services market in 2013. That’s according to ABI Research.
Cybercriminals were successfully attacking vulnerabilities in individual devices and networks to an ABI report.
“Isolated and standalone security solutions will work for the individual consumer, but for organizational applications and carriers, mobile security services will take the lead,” says Michela Menting, ABI Research’s senior analyst in cyber security.
The epidemic wasn’t new.
There’s been another global cybercrime assault on smartphones, according to a government task force, which includes the FBI. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) waived a big red flag. In particular, it’s a threat to Android users. As a result, IC3 issued security tips for users.
Wait, there’s more.
Identity fraud jumped by 13 percent – claiming 11.6 million American adult victims in 2011, according to a study. The report indicates smartphone and social media users were heavily victimized.
The study shows seven percent of smartphone users were affected. Javelin Strategy & Research (www.javelinstrategy.com), a San Francisco bay area firm, conducted the study.
“Consumers must be vigilant and in control of their personal data as they adopt new mobile and social technologies in order to not make it easier for fraudsters to perpetrate crimes,” said James Van Dyke, president of Javelin.
Here’s an excerpt of Javelin’s four main takeaways:
Identity fraud incidents increased, amount stolen remained steady – The number of identity fraud incidents increased by 13 percent over the past year, but the dollar amount stolen remained steady.
Social behaviors put consumers at risk – Specifically, 68 percent of people with public social media profiles shared their birthday information (with 45 percent sharing month, date and year); 63 percent shared their high school name; 18 percent shared their phone number; and 12 percent shared their pet’s name – all are prime examples of personal information a company would use to verify your identity.
Smartphone owners experience greater incidence of fraud – The survey found seven percent of smartphone owners were victims of identity fraud. This is a one-third higher incidence rate compared to the general public.
Part of this increase may be attributable to consumer behavior: 32 percent of smartphone owners do not update to a new operating system when it becomes available; 62 percent do not use a password on their home screen—enabling anyone to access their information if the phone is lost; and 32 percent save login information on their device.
Data breaches increasing and more damaging – One likely contributing factor to the fraud increase was the 67 percent increase in the number of Americans impacted by data breaches compared to 2010. Javelin Strategy & Research found victims of data breaches are 9.5 times more likely to be a victim of identity fraud than consumers who did not receive such a data breach letter.
So, consider taking the precautions with your smartphone security and social media sharing.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resources:
5 Safety Measures to Thwart Mounting Social-Network Attacks
Who Profits from Android’s Security Issues? Not Users.
Lesson about Passwords after Theft of 16,000+ UCLA Patient Records
“There’s a lot of weirdos on the Internet.”
-Miss Texas Teen USA (1998 pageant)
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