Security: Consumer Technologies Invade the Enterprise

Enterprise IT infrastructure is at risk from the increased exposure to consumer software and hardware.   Empl0yees are increasingly using personal technology devices, like tablet computers and smartPhones to access their company’s email and intranet services, and they also are accessing consumer and social media web sites from their corporate computers on a regular basis.  From  a security perspective, the intermingling of corporate services and data with consumer ones is cause for concern.

A survey by ProofPoint and Osterman Research, 2011 Consumerized IT Security Survey,  found that 16 percent of companies totally lock down their networks to access from any personal devices and prohibits access to any non-approved web sites.  But even among those companies with locked down access, 64 percent of IT staff fear that employees are finding ways to get around the lock down.  At the other end of the spectrum, 12 percent of companies secure their networks by trusting that their employees to use their “good judgement” in avoiding security vulnerabilities.

The report suggests that companies should consider a more flexible, but secure, middle road that includes accepting the inevitability that consumer devices and web sites will be used within the corporate network, but companies need to set and monitor policies for how consumer IT can be used.  The report’s recommendation includes a combination of trust, policy and trechnology.

• Trust – employees are expected to use “good judgement” when interacting with consumer technologies on the corporate network
• Policy – policies are set as to  acceptable and unacceptable uses of consumer technology within the corporation
• Technology – policies are monitored by technology and employees are notified when they begin to deviate from established policy

David Knight, executive vice president of product management and marketing at Proofpoint, said “Companies that have no strategy for managing consumer-driven technologies on their network are in serious peril. Sooner or later, an unprotected device, social media or IM platform is going to provide unauthorized access to sensitive or regulated information.  Enterprises that stick their heads in the sand when it comes to consumerized IT are increasing risk at an unquantifiable rate.”