Infosecurity Europe 2012: BYOD misunderstood by users and never embraced by MoD

A third of users fail to notice any risk with a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy, while only ten per cent of IT managers believe users are educated concerning the consumerisation of IT.

According to a survey of two,000 global users by BT for its ‘Rethink the Risk' research, it found that 37 per cent of UK-based employees were permitted to attach personally owned devices to the company network. Also, while company-sanctioned BYOD adoption is often high, the level of use stated by employees is bigger than that acknowledged by IT managers.

Jeff Schmidt, global head of commercial continuity, security and governance at BT Global Services, said the unthinkable is now the routine. “Go back ten to fifteen years and the premise of connecting with an individual device was exceptional, however it is now a natural act. Policies should be translucent to the user and we have to educate them,” he said.

In the survey, 40 per cent of employees said that "the IT department imposes rules and regulations that restrict essentially the most innovative use of recent technologies", and almost half disliked the premise of getting additional security measures installed.

Carl Blackett, ICT security architect at Norfolk County Council, said IT must remove the yes/no attitude and take a more risk-based approach.

The research also found that 57 per cent of IT decision-makers believe that the increase of BYOD heralds the move to a brand new model of IT where barriers between the person and workplace dissolve and everything is linked together by the company network.

Captain Simon Wise, deputy head of service operations on the global operations security control centre on the Ministry of Defence, said that during terms of BYOD, it had one short and sharp policy â€" it doesn't have a policy.

He said: “The user experience is affected but we wish to be certain that the core business will be secure and that the core functionality is at an assured level.

“We require everyone to be completely vigilant at the indisputable fact that not everyone gets it right all the time. What information are you seeking to protect and what's it worth? Decide what's important and what's important for the MoD to guard.”

The survey found that 37 per cent of IT managers within the government sector think that cyber security is “a major concern”, compared with 49 per cent within the financial services sector and just 26 per cent in logistics.