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The usual suspects—phishing, ransomware and malware—remain a worry, but cybercriminals aren’t standing still. They are getting increasingly creative at finding new ways to fool users, break through companies’ defenses and compromise organizations' systems and cloud-based apps.
More organizations were hit.
Compiling the data for this report, we found that 39% of organizations admitted to suffering a security compromise involving a mobile device—up from 33% in the 2019 report and 27% in our first report.
Again, the consequences of mobile compromises were shown to be severe and far-reaching. Of those that had suffered a compromise, 66% said the impact was major and 36% said it had lasting repercussions.
A mobile security breach can have serious financial implications and do lasting damage to your brand. And it’s not always easy to bounce back. Thirty-seven percent of those that were hit said that remediation was difficult and expensive.
Mobile devices have rapidly replaced the personal computer at home and in the workplace. Our phones or tablets are in fact mini-computers, and should be protected as such. They face the same or even more threats than a PC or a laptop.
—Europol3
It’s not just your data at risk.
When most people think of cybersecurity compromises, it’s the loss or exposure of data that springs to mind. But it’s much more than a company’s sensitive information that’s at risk. A mobile security compromise can have a range of other consequences, including downtime, supply chain delays, lost business, damage to reputation and regulatory fines.
In fact, among those in our survey that had experienced a compromise, downtime was even more common as a consequence than loss of data.
Financial services companies were particularly concerned about this—95% said that their customers expect a reliable service and that even a few minutes of unplanned downtime could have an adverse impact on the company's reputation.
3 Mobile Malware: Public Awareness and Prevention, Europol, https://www.europol.europa.eu/activitiesservices/public-awareness-and-prevention-guides/mobile-malware
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