Data Loss, A Growing Concern For Small Business
The growing trend toward bring your own device(BYOD) in the workplace is putting company data at risk, according to a survey by Mozy and Compass Partners. Most (87 percent) small and midsize businesses have no formal policy in place regarding employees’ use of personal devices for work purposes — and 80 percent weren’t even concerned. About 33 percent of companies let employees make their own decisions about how to back up company and client data on their devices, and most companies lack adequate backup or data recovery plans for those devices.
Besides not backing up, employees are engaging in other risky behavior with their personal devices, including not having antivirus protection, leaving laptops alone in coffee shops or other public places, using public computers to access company networks and transferring unencrypted data.
Why it matters to your business: The risk of loss isn’t just theoretical. For example, 11 percent of the survey’s respondents said employee laptops have been stolen in the past, and in 98 percent of those cases, all of the lost data was never recovered. The “bring your own device” trend isn’t going away, but if you allow it, you do need to set some rules to protect your customers’ data, your data — and your business.
About Mozy
Mozy is the world’s most trusted online backup service for consumers and businesses, with more than three million customers, 70,000 business users and 70 petabytes of information stored at its multiple data centers around the globe. Mozy was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2007 and operates as part of Decho Corporation, an EMC company. More information can be found at www.mozy.com
About the Study
The study was executed by Compass Partners LLC, an independent market research firm focused on consumer technology. The study was fielded among 641 business decision makers responsible for the purchase of software and computer related services for small and medium businesses with 1 – 1,000 full-time employees. Field dates were October 24 through November 1, 2011. For each industry vertical sampled (each cell contained a minimum of 100 responses), the margin of error is +/- 9.8% at 95% confidence interval.
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