According to the new study by MobileIron, the future of work is the “Everywhere-Enterprise”. According to surveys, over 80% of employees worldwide want to work more from home and not work full-time in the office again. Indeed: The security of mobile devices, apps and users must be a top priority for every CIO as their employees work mobile in the new Everywhere Enterprise.
MobileIron, the mobile-centric security platform for the Everywhere Enterprise, today announced the results of its new study: Over 80% of employees worldwide do not want to return to their office full-time, even though one in three (30%) employees are isolated from their team during perceived lockdown as the greatest obstacle to their productivity.
COVID-19 accelerates the trend towards remote work and home office
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly changed the daily work routine of many people and has accelerated the already increasing trend towards remote work. This has created many new security challenges for IT departments as employees increasingly use their personal devices to access corporate data and services. On the challenges that the new “EverywhereEnterprise” – where employees, IT infrastructure and customers can be anywhere – also means that security is not a priority for employees. The study found that a third of workers (33%) rate IT security as a low priority.
The flexible remote work environment has also created a new source of danger in which cybercriminals are increasingly targeting mobile devices for phishing attacks. These can be quite simple or highly complex and are very promising because many employees do not know how to recognize and avoid a phishing attack. 43% of surveyed employees worldwide do not know exactly what a phishing attack is.
Many employees do not know exactly what a phishing attack is
“Mobile devices are everywhere and have access to practically everything. But most employees have inadequate mobile security systems in place, so now is the season for hackers,” said Brian Foster, SVP Product Management, MobileIron. “Hackers know that more than ever, people are using their inadequately secured mobile devices to access corporate data, and as a result are increasingly targeting them with phishing attacks. Every organization needs to implement a mobile-centric security strategy that prioritizes usability and enables employees to be as productive as possible on any device, anywhere, without compromising their privacy,” said Foster.
The study shows that four different employee personas have emerged as a result of the lockdown in Everywhere Enterprise. Mobile devices play a more important role than ever before in ensuring productivity:
Hybrid Holger:
- Typically works in financial services, specialist services, or the public sector.
- Ideally, split his time equally between home office and face-to-face meetings in the office; although this employee likes to work from home, isolation from his teammates is the biggest obstacle to his productivity.
- Relies on a laptop and mobile device, along with secure access to email, CRM apps and video collaboration tools, to stay productive.
- Believes that IT security ensures productivity and improves the usability of the devices. However, he has only limited information about phishing attacks.
Mobile monitor:
- Works constantly on the go with a variety of mobile devices, including tablets and cell phones, and often relies on public Wi-Fi networks for work.
- Relies on remote collaboration tools and cloud suites to work
- Sees unreliable technology as the biggest obstacle to productivity as it is constantly on the move and heavily reliant on mobile devices.
- Perceives IT security as an obstacle to productivity, as it slows down the processing of tasks; this employee also believes that IT security is a threat to their own privacy.
- This persona is most likely to click dangerous links because they rely heavily on mobile devices.
Desktop Doris:
- Perceives the separation of teammates and work in the home office as an obstacle to productivity and can hardly wait to return to the office.
- Prefer to work on a desktop PC in the office than with mobile devices on the go.
- Relies heavily on Productivity Suites when communicating with colleagues inside and outside the office.
- Regards IT security as a low priority and leaves this entirely to the IT department. They too have only limited information about phishing attacks.
Field service Alex:
- Works with direct customer contact in industries such as healthcare, logistics or retail.
- Works from designated locations, such as hospitals or retail stores; this employee cannot work on the go.
- Works with specially designed devices and apps, such as medical or courier devices and applications; this employee is not as dependent on private mobile devices for his productivity as other people.
- Understand that IT security is essential to ensure productivity; given the specialist nature of their work, this employee cannot afford to have downtime with devices or apps.
Organizations need to take a zero trust approach to security
“As more and more employees use mobile devices to stay productive and work from anywhere, organizations need to adopt a zero-trust approach to security. In this way, they ensure that only trusted devices, applications and users can access corporate resources,” explains Foster. “Enterprises must also step up defenses against mobile threats as cybercriminals increasingly target text and SMS messages, social media, productivity and messaging apps. This is how they spread the links for their phishing attacks. To prevent unauthorized access to corporate data, organizations must implement robust technical anti-phishing controls that go beyond email. This is the only way to ensure the security of users, no matter where they work and what device they use to access the resources.”
For this study 1.200 workers in the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand were interviewed. You can get a free copy of the full Persona Report here .
More about the study at MobileIron.com
About MobileIron MobileIron is redefining enterprise security with the industry's first mobile-centric zero trust platform built on top of Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) to secure unlimited access to and protection of data across the enterprise. Zero Trust assumes that cyber criminals are already on the network and that secure access is determined by a "never trust, always verify" approach. MobileIron goes beyond identity management and gateway approaches by using a broader set of attributes before granting access. A mobile-centric zero trust approach validates the device, establishes the user context, checks the authorization of applications, verifies the network and detects and corrects threats before a secure access to a device or a user is granted. The MobileIron security platform is built on the foundation of the award-winning and industry-leading Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) capabilities with additional zero-trust enabling technologies, including zero-sign-on (ZSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and mobile threat Defense (MTD). Over 20.000 customers, including the world's largest financial institutions, intelligence services, and other highly regulated companies, have chosen MobileIron to provide a seamless and secure user experience by ensuring that only authorized users, devices, applications, and services access corporate resources can.