Jane Edwards
A Verizon report has found that 48 percent of public sector respondents whose organizations had suffered a compromise involving a mobile device said the effects of the breach were major.
Public sector organizations cited loss of data, increased risk to employee safety and disruption of operations as the top three consequences of a breach they were concerned about, Verizon said in the report.
In 2020, Verizon commissioned an independent research company to poll 856 senior professionals responsible for mobile device procurement, management and security for its Mobile Security Index 2021 report. Twenty-three percent of the total respondents were from U.S. federal, local and state government agencies.
According to the report, 40 percent of public sector respondents said they consider mobile devices as “extremely critical” to the smooth operations of their organizations and 82 percent of respondents said they believe their organizations need to take a more serious approach to mobile device security.
The report showed that 70 percent of public sector organizations said their budgets are facing greater pressure due to the public’s expectations for increased online services.
The respondents also mentioned malware, loss/theft, rogue Wi-Fi, phishing and ransomware as the top five most common threats that organizations in the public sector were most concerned about.
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