The challenges facing organizations never diminish – but they do change over time.  As our recent CIO survey shows, cloud data mobility threats and associated security challenges are two concerns CIOs face today.  In fact, CIOs are keenly aware of their responsibilities to protect company intellectual property and/or confidential data, while at the same time enabling employees to have flexibility and anytime, anywhere access to corporate data.

And now, recent events have analysts asking Enterprise Users to proceed with care.  A recent spam-attack on Dropbox file-sharing service prompted Forrester‘s John Kindervag to state:

“I am doubtful that they [Dropbox] are enterprise-ready at this time… their focus and incentives are not yet properly aligned.”

Kindervag points out that “the bigger problem for businesses is that workers use such cloud-based services — without a corporate okay — to store sensitive documents that could violate compliance laws or internal data privacy rules…”

Similarly, Sophos‘ Chester Wisniewski explains:

“Dropbox has had a checkered history with security, but perhaps this was the wakeup call they needed.”

IT executives are also facing the daunting challenge posed by what we’ve called the “Dropbox Effect”. A recent article explains the CIO’s dilemma:

Gartner predicts that in less than three years, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures will happen outside of the corporate IT budget. Employees will regularly subscribe to collaboration, analytic and other cloud services they want, all with the press of a button. Others will simply build their own applications using readily available cloud-based tools and development platforms.

Thus, the “Consumerization of IT” has created a massive headache for organizations across virtually all industries.

Question: What should IT do? Is there a solution that delivers a secure file sync and share solution and gives your users what they want to remain mobile and efficient while getting sensitive data out of public clouds?

Yes, as it turns out, there is.

We call it MezeoFile – an enterprise-level file sync and share solution which offers the end-user consumer functionality and enterprise security.

The “Consumerization of IT” has dramatically changed the way users work.

Whether it’s “Bring Your Own Device” to work (BYOD) or employees storing documents on public clouds for sharing and collaborating purposes, corporate users are seeking out – and implementing – ways to improve efficiency.

While you don’t want to stop progress – you can’t risk security. In a technology demanding business environment, how can the Chief Information Officer (CIO) protect company intellectual property and/or confidential data, while enabling employees to have flexibility and anytime, anywhere access to corporate data needed to succeed?

To answer that question, we surveyed more than 150 North American Enterprise CIOs. We asked them about the cloud data mobility threats and associated security challenges facing their organizations and the demands on their IT staff.

Download the 2012 CIO Enterprise Cloud Data Mobility & Security Survey.

As we learned recently, even IBM is not immune to the “consumerization of IT” wave currently sweeping the enterprise.

The threat? When employees use popular consumer apps at work, there are serious security risks.

At Mezeo, we describe the “file sync and share” challenge as follows:

The Consumerization of IT has added a new level of complexity to IT. Whether an organization has a bring your own device (BYOD) to work policy or corporations supply mobile devices – users are taking advantage of mobile technology. They are experiencing increased levels of productivity and efficiency by being able to work from anywhere at any time. From airports, hotels or at home, they are using their tablets, smartphones and personal laptops for business. And unless IT has offered them a corporate solution, that often means users are storing and sharing confidential corporate data on the same public clouds they use to store and share their personal files and photos.

For the sake of brevity, let’s call this the “Dropbox Effect.”

Continue reading...

In a recent MIT Technology Review article, we learn that IBM is facing the “consumerization of IT” wave currently sweeping the enterprise.  This represents a classic example of the business impact of the “bring your own device” movement.

The trend toward employee-owned devices isn’t saving IBM any money, says Jeanette Horan, who is IBM’s chief information officer and oversees all the company’s internal use of IT. Instead, she says, it has created new challenges for her department of 5,000 people, because employees’ devices are full of software that IBM doesn’t control.

This is what happens when 80,000 workers reach internal IBM networks using smart phones and tablets, including ones they purchased for themselves. And, when IBM conducted an internal survey, many employees were “blissfully unaware” of what popular apps could be security risks.

Also:

On the list of banned apps are public file-transfer services such as Dropbox; Horan says IBM fears that using such software could allow sensitive information to get loose. In the survey, other employees were found to be violating protocol by automatically forwarding their IBM e-mail to public Web mail services or using their smart phones to create open Wi-Fi hotspots, which make data vulnerable to snoops.

All enterprise IT organizations need to formulate a response, and it needs to include secure alternatives to public cloud services, versus
simple prevention of their use.

Our Enterprise Cloud Data Mobility and Security Survey couldn’t be more timely.

We just launched the Enterprise Cloud Data Mobility & Security Survey 2012  - to help IT decision makers determine the data risks associated with the public cloud.

The survey identifies the key enterprise-level risks and causes leading to data leakage in public clouds.  The survey also seeks to determine obstacles associated with preventing leaks and the mobile device policies found at companies using public cloud storage. The final results of the survey will be made available for download on this site.

While enterprise-level IT decision-makers are constantly under pressure to reduce the cost of storage without compromising data security, integrity or availability, the Consumerization of IT has introduced yet another challenge.  In an effort to improve efficiency, many corporate users are leveraging the same consumer based clouds they use to share personal photos and files to also store and share corporate data; this means that corporate IT has lost control of the security and availability of some corporate data. This survey will help define the data-risk problems faced by IT
executives and give the industry clearer insights on the real challenges in cloud data mobility and security.

Take our nine-question survey here >>