Bitglass Report: BYOD Supported in More Than 70 Percent of Organizations That Are Driven by Need for Increased Productivity

CAMPBELL, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 28, 2016) - Bitglass, the Total Data Protection company, released the results of its report "How Forward-Looking Industries Secure BYOD," which shares insights on bring-your-own device (BYOD) security gained from a survey of more than 800 cybersecurity professionals across five major industries, including financial services, technology, healthcare, government and education. Bitglass found that 72 percent of organizations, led by the financial services sector, support BYOD for all or some employees. However, relatively few organizations are able to control access to corporate data, remotely wipe devices or enforce device encryption. Only 14 percent have successfully deployed much-hyped Mobile Application Management (MAM) solutions.

"The threat of data leakage is more prevalent than ever, as employees look to access sensitive corporate information on mobile devices outside the corporate network," said Nat Kausik, CEO, Bitglass. "Unfortunately, few organizations have adequate risk-control measures in place. Fewer than half support critical capabilities such as device encryption and DLP -- a gap that suggests more-comprehensive BYOD security solutions are needed."

Key Findings:

• 72 percent of organizations surveyed support BYOD, led by financial services at 74 percent.
• Despite regulations and security concerns, fewer than 60 percent of financial services organizations have remote wipe and encryption capabilities.
• Only 54 percent of government organizations support BYOD, a lower percentage than in all other surveyed industries.
• Higher education lags behind other industries in enforcing essential risk-control measures. Only 18 percent of those surveyed have access controls in place, and just 29 percent have the ability to remotely wipe devices.
• Only 14 percent of organizations have adopted MAM tools since their introduction in 2010. Most respondents cited employee privacy concerns and usability issues as top challenges to adoption.

Concerns, Drivers and Inhibitors
Bitglass' report found that 62 percent of healthcare organizations see compliance as a top security concern, due to HIPAA's stringent requirements. Notably, organizations across all sectors were concerned with data leakage -- including 81 percent of financial services organizations, 90 percent of healthcare organizations and 79 percent of education organizations.

Organizations in most industries see employee satisfaction as a key benefit of enabling BYOD. Government was the only exception, with just 44 percent of respondents valuing employee satisfaction.

Privacy was cited as the biggest inhibitor to BYOD adoption in 52 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and in 44 percent of organizations in the technology sector, where savvy employees understand the invasive nature of existing tools such as MDM and MAM. Security was cited as the biggest inhibitor to BYOD in large organizations and regulated industries, namely financial services and healthcare.

Strikingly, the report found that device encryption was supported in only 36 percent of educational institutions, 56 percent of financial services organizations and 57 percent of healthcare organizations -- timely statistics as the U.S. and other countries continue to debate the use of encryption in the enterprise and by consumers.

To view the complete Bitglass report, "How Forward-Looking Industries Secure BYOD," visit: bitglass.com/byod-trends-report_2016

About Bitglass
Bitglass is a Cloud Access Security Broker that delivers innovative technologies that transcend the network perimeter to deliver total data protection for the enterprise - in the cloud, at access, on mobile devices, on the network and anywhere on the Internet. Bitglass was founded in 2013 by a team of industry veterans with a proven track record of innovation and execution. Bitglass is based in Silicon Valley.