NEW YORK, Feb 7, 2024 – (ACN Newswire) – Sotera Digital Security, a leading US based provider of secure communications solutions, has today released its findings from a survey it conducted among over 1,000 senior personnel of large businesses and multinational corporations across the globe.
Sectors covered by the survey participants focused on those that require the need for ultra-secure and private communications – both regionally and worldwide – with clients, colleagues and suppliers; namely legal, pharmaceutical, media and corporate affairs, government, and blockchain / AI tech specialists.
The survey results provide key insights into current mobile phone security practices within the workplace, and reveal a startling lack of awareness among both professionals and their companies of the significant privacy threats with standard smartphones and popular ‘secure’ messaging apps, despite a reportedly growing reliance on such for work-related communications.
Key Findings
70% of the professionals surveyed were unaware that popular messaging apps are vulnerable to privacy attacks. Yet, 96% reported that their company allows the use of Signal and/or WhatsApp from their personal mobile phones for work communications, with over half (57%) reporting an increased usage of such apps compared to the previous year;
90% of the professionals surveyed place more importance on safeguarding the security and privacy on their laptops than their mobile phones, despite 26% having had their mobile phone hacked in the past; 24% reported that their company doesn’t have an official mobile phone policy, while a closer look at those that do reveals that approximately 1 in 4 such policies don’t provide adequate guidance, such as the requirement of having a password to unlock the device;
87% of companies don’t provide Mobile Device Management or Mobile Application Management to their employees – on both company and privately-owned devices that are used for work communications; Less than half of respondents update their device (48%) within 24 hours of a new software release, meaning over 50% are neglecting Android and IOS vulnerabilities which those updates attempt to patch.
Despite the prevalence of vulnerabilities, there is a significant lack of awareness among professionals regarding the susceptibility of popular smartphones and apps to privacy attacks. Findings signal an urgent call to organizations to reevaluate their mobile phone security protocols.
“Our survey demonstrates a clear gap in understanding and addressing phone security in the workplace. I am proud Sotera continues to raise critical awareness on standard smartphones and popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, often perceived as secure, that are in fact nowhere near one-hundred percent secure, with vulnerabilities that leave users and their organizations exposed to data breaches and privacy infringements”, comments David Kay, CEO of Sotera Digital.
