VMware, Inc., a cloud infrastructure company, announced a new VMware Digital Workspace Study, which found that Malaysian businesses might be at risk of costly data breaches and cyber-attacks, with more than a third (38 percent) of employees using unapproved personal devices for work. These security risks are exacerbated by ignorance of technology guidelines, with close to half (42 percent) of employees who do not comply with their company’s IT policies or do not know them at all.
The VMware Digital Workspace Study, which surveyed professionals across Southeast Asia on their BYOD habits, revealed that majority of Malaysians (79 percent) turn to personal mobile devices for work.
When it comes to technology infrastructure provided by the company, more than half (55 percent) of them feel that devices issued by their organizations do not meet their needs. Additionally, most do not trust the efficiency of these devices and their capability to allow employees to work seamlessly across multiple platforms.
The BYOD threat goes beyond security. 81% of Malaysian employees said they encounter difficulties when using work applications. The main roadblocks are “having too many passwords to remember” (42 percent); “different interface experiences” (39 percent); and “apps that do not sync up perfectly across devices” (31 percent). To overcome these challenges, employees use the same password across devices and applications (29 percent) or save them as notes on their mobile devices (29 percent).
The VMware Digital Workspace Study, conducted by YouGov and sponsored by VMware, surveyed 2,500 working adults (500 per market) across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Korea in March 2017. The survey reached out to working professionals between 18 – 55+ years of age; who work in various public and private sector industries including automotive, manufacturing, FSI, healthcare, hospitality, and retail amongst others.