LAS VEGAS – Companies may have well established policies of what their employees may or may not do with their own smartphones, but that doesn’t mean their workers always obey.
A survey released today by CTIA-The Wireless Association found that what employees do, and what IT professionals think they are doing, are very different.
While only 30% of consumers were very or somewhat familiar with BYOD, 47% had never heard of it. Yet the numbers for IT professionals were more modest than expected with 55% who were very or somewhat familiar, while 26% admitted they had never heard of it. Despite unfamiliarity with the term, when told the definition, more than half of users said they engaged in some sort of BYOD behavior, reads the release.
The top five information or applications used by employees were email, calendar and scheduling, databases, company apps and directories. Forty-seven percent of users also said there was no formal policy on BYOD at their office, which closely matched the 42% of IT experts who said there wasn’t one.
Employees also trust their IT departments with 83% saying their smartphones are very or somewhat secure which climbed to 85% for tablets, while those IT professionals were less so in their security efforts for smartphones (68%) and tablets (70%).
When it came to whose responsibility it is to keep the devices secure, both users (82%) and IT professionals (67%) say it’s the user’s primary duty and when asked what steps they’ve taken to protect their mobile devices, consumers say they have installed or used software updates (63%); password/PINs (58%); anti-virus programs (43%); location tracking (38%); and an app to remote lock, locate and/or erase data (34%).
When asked what the IT department has done to protect the devices, users say they have installed or used password/PINs (34%); anti-virus programs (28%); software updates (26%); restrict downloads (25%); and restrict access to certain employees (22%). This is similar to what IT professionals state they have installed or used: password/PINs (46%); anti-virus programs (38%); network certificates (37%); VPNs (31%) and restrict access to certain employees (31%), reads the press release.
The survey was conducted in February 2013 with 250 Information Technology Decision Makers and more than 1,000 full-time employed mobile device users by Harris Interactive on behalf of the CTIA.
