CIOs prioritizing personal mobile device security

With more than half of financial services enterprises already supporting personally-owned mobile devices, a significant challenge has been introduced to most firms’ existing mobile policies and IT operations, according to Forrester Consulting.

Personally-owned devices are growing in the enterprise and CIOs are making management and security more of a priority than ever before. For 49 percent of the respondents, ensuring regulatory compliance is the top IT security priority.

IT professionals within firms governed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) must ensure that smartphones are in compliance with their firm’s broader privileged information requirements. When asked which industry regulations are driving concerns regarding mobile devices, 41 percent indicated FINRA compliance and, the same percentage reported that Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is a concern.

More than a third of the IT professionals indicated that their enterprise supports multiple mobile operating systems (OSs), with ten percent supporting four or more. In an effort to avoid getting spread too thin, IT often provides minimal support for these OSs, introducing vulnerabilities and threats.

The study indicates that tackling these challenges requires that IT and telecom managers invest in a mobility service that delivers on key functionality. Eighty-six percent of respondents have already deployed a strong password policy.

Other popularly-deployed strategies include: full disk encryption (71 percent), remote lock/wipe (64 percent) and asset and activity visibility and management (66 percent) across all types of mobile devices. Over the next two years, 43 percent of enterprises surveyed plan to deploy Over-the-air (OTA) configuration management.