72% Indian business faced mobility incidents in last one year, says Symantec survey

Almost 72 per cent of the Indian business faced mobility incidents in the last 12 months, while 37 per cent using mobility devices have lost revenue due to mobility incidents, according to a survey conducted by Symantec Software India Private Limited.

According to the survey, conducted on 200 Indian companies on mobile trends, the companies were affected by mobility incidents like malware infections, spam incidents, exposures of information, breaches due to lost or stolen devices and 28 phishing or social engineering instances on an average. One in three have experienced direct financial costs as a result of mobility incidents, it added.

The company says that around 40 per cent restrict mobile device usage through HR enforcement and 38 per cent use technology controls. Seven in 10 Indian businesses believe that the benefits are equal to or outweigh the risks.

One in two businesses have taken measures to ensure employees adhere to policy guidelines while 45 per cent have ensured that mobile devices that connect to the network have proper safeguards installed.

In the next one year, the number of mobility devices business houses buy for its employees is expected to go up by 5 per cent, while at present, 55 per cent say over half the devices are purchased by the organisation.

Speaking to reporters, Shantanu Ghosh, managing director (India product operations), said that the Indian government was also looking at bringing in regulations to address the internet security issues. In order to track down the hackers, the government is planning to bring in stringent regulations in which the companies that have been victimised for hacking have to share more data related to the hacking and the company.

The survey also reveals that around six in 10 business houses consider themselves to be innovators when it comes to using technology.

It added that two in five or almost 40 per cent of the Indians using mobility devices do not use any mobile security solution, with one in four or 24 per cent of users are not aware of such solutions.

One in thee Indians doe not use passwords for the mobile devices, while almost 32 per cent doe not have a solution to lock, locate and wipe the data. Around 65 per cent of Indians use secure payment methods when making purchases while 73 per cent never save important personal information on mobile online services.