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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Mobile Devices, Virtualization Are Biggest Security Challenges

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Increased use of mobile devices, especially smartphones, in addition to the transition to virtualization, are key factors weighing on enterprises trying to sort out security strategy and budgets, according to a survey of 688 information and security managers.

According to the Ponemon Institute's "State of the Endpoint" study released this week, there are serious signs that IT operations and IT security often fail to work as a team. Forty percent say collaboration is "poor or non-existent" and 48% call it "adequate, but can be improved." Virtualization, mainly VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, are increasingly the software platforms their organizations support, and 55% say virtualization does require "additional security measures," with most turning for help with that to the virtualization vendor or vendors with specialized virtualization security components.

But a surprising 41% indicated responsibility for virtualization security isn't clearly defined by department or function. Additionally, 21% said IT security was responsible, 15% said IT operations was and 11% said it was the job for IT compliance. Mobile devices - especially the use of employee-owned devices for work purposes - are also putting new stress on the IT department, according to the survey, which was sponsored by Lumension. The survey shows that mobile devices, especially smartphones, are counted as among "the greatest rise of potential IT security risk."

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