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Trust in mobility is at a crossroad, according to a Juniper Networks survey. While most users do use their mobile devices for sensitive data, many don’t really trust the mobile ecosystem, putting the onus on the industry to establish trust among users, or lose them in the future. Juniper’s first annual Trusted Mobility Index found only 15% of the 4,037 respondents from five markets around the world had “a great deal of confidence in the security of their mobile devices and services, while the vast majority – 63% – are at a crossroads and simply do not know if they should trust that their mobile experiences are secure.”
More importantly, the survey, conducted in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and China, found the lack of consumer confidence in the security of their mobile devices is a threat to future adoption of services. “All it would take is a single security vulnerability for people to really change their pattern and do something differently,” said Juniper Asia Pacific director of security Michael Greco. According to the survey, if a single vulnerability occurs to them, the majority of people (71%) said they would stop using critical services like online banking (78%), that they would no longer send private communications (57%) and they would stop viewing medical (54%) or work-related information (52%).
“These are the type of activities, types of applications that people are considering stopping, refraining from, completely, and I think as these issues around security become more and more prevalent, we’ll see those percentage rise,” said Greco, adding that if the mobile industry don’t establish the trust of mobile users, “enterprises benefiting from mobility will be gone.” Greco points out that the mobile industry will not be like the PC sector, which has a legacy paradigm for conducting security since most PCs come pre-installed with anti-virus software and the onus is often on the user to secure their computer.
“Because some of these are connected to mobile networks, there’s a natural assignment of responsibility to these service providers,” he said. “I think the other side of the coin is that there’s an opportunity for service providers to provide this service to mobile subscribers, there’s an opportunity for business.” While the need to garner consumer trust in mobile security is heightening, the challenge of providing mobile security is increasingly as more users get online with more devices.
Despite the concerns, the survey found users are nevertheless engaging in sensitive activities with their mobile devices. The survey found that over three quarters (76%) of global respondents use their mobile devices to access sensitive data, such as online banking and personal medical information, while 90% of business users said they access critical work information from mobiles.
At the same time, the number of devices users own is adding to the complexity. Respondents to the survey owned an average of 3 mobile devices, while 18% of the respondents had 5 or more mobile devices. – CommsDay.
