Mobile-related security top concern for enterprises: Report

Security continues to be the top concern for enterprise wide adoption and embracing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) adds to this challenge, a survey said.

An Oracle-sponsored survey, ‘The Connected Enterprise: Keeping Pace with Mobile Development’, said: “Around 93 percent of respondents cited concern over data loss and other security breaches related to mobile devices with BYOD being a key contributor to this concern. Organizations are turning more to centralized management rather than relying on users for security. In the next two years, respondents say their organizations will be focusing more on device data encryption (10 percent more than today), centralized updating and troubleshooting (11 percent more), remote wiping of data (11 percent more) and lockdown of features (18 percent more).”

The survey also predicts that mobile-related IT expenses will double in two years. It said enterprises are committed to mobility today but the rate of development, deployment and spending for support of mobile applications and devices is expected to increase dramatically over the next few years. Additionally, the survey showed that there are increasing concerns from IT executives over mobile security and integration with back-end systems. 

Average IT department spending per device, per employee stands at US $157 today. That is expected to grow to US $242 over the next two years, an increase of 54 percent.

The survey revealed that although 29 per cent of IT development time is spent on front-end mobile app development, more than 70 per cent of their time is spent on integration, security, quality assurance testing and design work.

According to the survey, 35 percent of midsize and large enterprise organizations update their application portfolio monthly, while an additional 34 percent update their applications quarterly. More than four-fifths (82 percent) of respondents expect those rates to increase over the next two years.

“Mobility has been ubiquitous for a while but only 10 percent of enterprises have a wide deployment of mobile. Its impact and adoption are gaining importance today. This survey is reassuring in that enterprises see potential for great payoff from making a strong mobile commitment. They are recognizing that mobile applications provide a new way to develop and maintain relationships with customers,” said Suhas Uliyar, vice president, mobile strategy and product management, Oracle.

Seventy-five percent of respondents said that cloud/hybrid cloud is “somewhat important” or “very important” to mobile application deployment. Cloud technologies include platform as a service and a cloud-based mobile enterprise application platform.