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Three Effective Ways to Protect Enterprises from Mobile Threats
With the number of global mobile phone users projected to exceed five billion by 2019, the potential for mobile devices to improve efficiency is growing.
By
CIO Applications | Friday, November 30, 2018

With the number of global mobile phone users projected to exceed five billion by 2019, the potential for mobile devices to improve efficiency is growing. However, this meteoric rise has given cybercriminals an opportunity to hack into, and gain access to vital data from individual users and enterprises. Correspondingly, enterprises are building systems for better risk and compliance management to defend themselves against the looming cyber threats.
According to Gartner, only 23 percent of employees in the U.S., U.K., and Australia are given corporate-issued smartphones, making employee-owned mobile devices the best way for cybercriminals to gain access to highly sensitive company data. This has created an entirely new challenge for enterprises to overcome, and secure the upper hand on mobile security.
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Implementation pace of newer and innovative risk and compliance management solutions is not able to cope with the increasing number of mobile users. Therefore, the immediate approach against the ever-increasing cyber threats is precautionary. Following are three effective ways to protect enterprises from mobile threats and ensure a prompt defense against cyber attacks.
1. The requirement of Password-Protected Personal Devices
Enterprises need to be aware of the potential risk of authorizing personal devices in the workplace and establish policies that require employees to set automatic locks on the devices. In addition, biometrics such as the fingerprint scan is an effective way to prevent corporate data from falling into the hands of cybercriminals.
2. Education on the Risk of Downloading Unsecure Mobile Applications
Enterprises should motivate employees toward maintaining good application hygiene, which includes always downloading apps from an official app store, reviewing permissions before installing, and limiting access to contacts and location-specific data.
3. Download Anti-Malware Defenses
With the risk of cyber threats increasing every minute, enterprises also require employees to download anti-malware applications on their devices to scan for malware or potentially unwanted programs. Additionally, some anti-malware applications offer features such as remote deletion of data in case of loss and, tracking and blocking of unidentified callers.
Mobile devices are the easiest way for hackers to gain access to our private and business lives. Furthermore, enterprises must recognize the potential threat that mobile devices hold and take the necessary steps to protect the enterprise network from security breaches.
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