The risk perception among IT security employees of security in Google Android devices has almost doubled in one year according to a study.
A smartphone study by nCircle found that 71% of respondents said that Google Android devices present the highest level of smartphone security risk, when compared to only 39% in 2010.
The nCircle 2011 smartphone study is based on a survey of 551 respondents in the IT security industry, including senior management, IT operations, security professionals and risk and audit managers.
The study revealed that security concern about Apple iOS devices is also high, with 60% of respondents assigning the highest level of smartphone security risk to these devices.
More than half (62%) of respondents said that their companies have a smartphone security policy, compared with 58% in 2010, while only 56% of respondents said their companies enforce their smartphone policy, compared with 66% in 2010.
nCircle security research and development director Oliver Lavery said the sudden adoption of Android and iOS in the enterprise is perhaps behind the inability of many firms to enforce their smartphone security policies.
"It’s reasonable to assume that the consumerisation of IT is driving enterprise adoption of these devices, but policies written around Research In Motion products are not enforceable on iOS and Android devices," Lavery said.
"The huge growth in Android security concerns this year is also very striking as the appearance of rogue apps in the Android app store, coupled with several high-profile Android OS security issues, is probably behind these justifiable concerns."
