IT Professionals Forced to Adopt Smart Devices

Tripwire Survey Examines Views of 270 Information Security Professionals at Annual Information Security Conference

Tripwire, Inc., a leading global provider of advanced threat, security and compliance management solutions, announced the results of a survey of over 270 attendees at Infosecurity Europe 2015 in Olympia, London in the United Kingdom.

Research firm IDC anticipates there will be over 28 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices installed by 2020. These devices are expected to deliver an overall global economic value add of $1.9 trillion, of which 80 percent will be derived from services. While the IoT marketplace is lucrative, new devices will open additional attack vectors for enterprise networks.

According to the Tripwire’s survey, 68 percent of respondents believe that business efficiency requirements are forcing their organisations to adopt smart technology in spite of security risks.

Additional findings included:

• 87 percent of respondents said their organisation has a policy which places restrictions on employees connecting smart tools to the corporate network; however 62 percent of respondents admit they’ve already connected personal devices.
• When purchasing a new smart device, 73 percent of the respondents said their primary concern is functionality, not security.
• Over a quarter of the respondents (27 percent) already own between five and ten smart devices excluding smart phones and laptops.

“Even though many organizations have policies against connecting personal smart devices to their corporate networks, employees often feel that connecting these devices via USB to charge them isn’t a problem,” said Ken Westin, security analyst for Tripwire. “I’ve heard a number of stories about the security alerts generated when employees plug their smart phones into point-of-sale devices, a practice that can easily introduce additional risk. This is really an education problem – employees need a better understanding of the risks involved and IT teams need to provide reasonable options so employees can remain productive without increasing security risks to the organization.”

For more information please visit HERE.[su_box title=”About Tripwire” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]Tripwire is a leading provider of advanced threat, security and compliance solutions that enable enterprises, service providers and government agencies to confidently detect, prevent and respond to cybersecurity threats. Tripwire solutions are based on high-fidelity asset visibility and deep endpoint intelligence combined with business-context and enable security automation through enterprise integration. Tripwire’s portfolio of enterprise-class security solutions includes configuration and policy management, file integrity monitoring, vulnerability management and log intelligence.[/su_box]