Phones could be the chink in a company’s armour

Are Irish businesses looking in the wrong direction when it comes to security? While all the focus may be on artificial intelligence and the potential threats it poses to the security of organisations, the real danger may be a much simpler technology.

Smartphones, specifically.

A recent survey from Vodafone found that 70 per cent of Irish small and medium-sized companies were more worried about attacks on mobile devices than they were last year. But more than 40 per cent still gave full, unrestricted access to company resources on personal handsets – everything from email and apps to company documents.

More concerning was the admission that 20 per cent of businesses fail to monitor for security threats. That leaves an opening for bad actors to bypass other security measures and sneak in past the fence.

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It would not be quite as worrying if companies made mobile security training mandatory to ensure employees were aware of the risks but fewer than half do.

The world of work has changed. Hybrid working is a common arrangement, meaning people are more likely to use their personal devices for work. Almost a million Irish people operated in some sort of remote or hybrid work arrangement last year. Without proper management, that opens a chink in companies’ defences.

This is not a new threat in itself. The trend of bringing your own device to work began years before Covid forced us into remote working, and the potential security threats were debated to death. But it seems as though companies have forgotten the lessons from the past, too willing to let staff access sensitive data on their personal devices for convenience, without meaningful controls.

There are things Irish businesses can do to protect themselves. Make mobile security or management tools on devices a non-negotiable arrangement, for a start. Limit what company information and resources can be accessed on non-company phones, tablets and laptops. And ensure urgent security updates are applied in a timely fashion.

Above all, educate staff on the risks posed by personal devices. Knowledge is power, and Irish companies should, at this point, know better.