Research by IBM has found that mobile security is the number one most recently deployed initiative by CSOs.
A quarter of respondents in The 2013 IBM Chief Information Security Officer Assessment said they deployed mobile security strategies in the past 12 months.
Locally, IBM Asia Pacific institute for advanced security director, Glen Gooding, said most of the businesses the vendor talks to already have a BYOD strategy in place.
“Each organisation takes a different approach, but many organisations have adopted ‘point’ solutions, which don’t really address the broader security issue,” he said.
Gooding emphasises the importance of viewing mobile security within a strategic review of the organisation’s overall security posture.
“Until an organisation has this kind of holistic view and security intelligence, you cannot effectively manage risk,” he said.
While the report points out that this “short sighted” approach is a global issue, Gooding said this should be an opportunity for Australia to learn from others’ mistakes.
“Particularly since the Australian market tends to lag months behind other markets in terms of technology adoption,” he said.
Locking down the Cloud
Another key result in the survey was that 76 per cent of CSOs have deployed some type of Cloud security services.
Gooding views this as a positive sign that businesses are coming to terms with the importance of balancing the convenience of the Cloud with security.
“Contrary to popular opinion, we believe security can actually be an enabler for Cloud adoption,” he said.
Gooding adds that preparing an organisation for Cloud can force the business to "take security more seriously” and “future proof IT infrastructure” for Cloud based services and applications.
“Ensuring the business has a comprehensive identity and access management solution in place creates a strong foundation for adopting Cloud more readily without any administration issues,” he said.
“It also allows the business to integrate more readily with public/private Cloud based application providers and derive the multiple benefits of Cloud more quickly.”
Another key result from the research was that over 90 per cent of security leaders track the number of security incidents, lost or stolen records, data or devices, and audit and compliance status.
Patrick Budmar covers consumer and enterprise technology breaking news for IDG Communications. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_budmar.