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70% of Mobile Users have Vulnerable Apps

New data revealed today by Wandera, the Mobile Data Gateway, has revealed that 70% of users have insecure apps on their work mobile devices. In addition, 2.4% of employees are actively leaking passwords through use of such vulnerable apps, while over one in eight employees visited at least one site with malware during the last quarter.

The data comes from Wandera’s Enterprise Mobile Data Report, detailing mobile data usage for July, August and September 2014. The only report of its kind, the quarterly figures analyse mobile traffic across a sample of 10,000 corporate devices from the Wandera network, including 70% iOS and 30% Android devices.

Of the mobile threats detected by Wandera, 17% originated from China. This is followed by Russia with 14%, USA with 13%, Vietnam with 11% and Ukraine with 10%. This closely reflects the pattern of established threat sources for PCs and laptops.

Despite interest in iOS 8, Wandera has seen the lowest ever take-up of the new operating system across its user base with only 27% installed after four weeks. However, the launch of the new operating system did impact data usage with data up 24% in September compared with August, and much of this accounted for by iOS 8 related downloads.

Eldar Tuvey, CEO of Wandera said: “iOS 8 has been much hyped but the lack of take up of the new system is a concern as outdated operating systems can leave holes in businesses’ defences and increased security risks for users and corporations.

“Even without OS updates, the mobile threat landscape is an ever changing beast with new risks from apps, phishing, malware and browser threats emerging every day. For businesses whose employees are using mobile devices to access corporate data, the need to stay alert and on top of such threats can’t be overstated.”

Wandera’s Mobile Data Gateway sits between employee’s devices and the internet, allowing companies to manage how staff are using mobile data, and protect against the emergence of mobile threats.