Executives should be concerned about the rise of Android smartphones and cloud computing, according to an IT security expert who recently visited Vancouver.
“Android has more challenges than [Apple Inc.’s] IOS platform,” said Justin Somaini, chief information security officer at Symantec Corp.
Those challenges, he explained, include bugs that enable hackers to get data or attack the device with malicious software.
“The Blackberry [operating system] has been around for a while and as a result has gone through many vetting processes. It has a lot more security controls for enterprises,” he said.
Somaini was in Vancouver earlier this month to educate current and potential customers about the risks to corporate data and how to keep it safe.
The rise of cloud computing is another concern, he told Business in Vancouver.
Cloud computing is when users can simply use external storage, computing power or specially crafted development environments without having to worry about how these systems work internally.
Somaini praised Salesforce.com for having a secure cloud, but he warned that some cloud computing providers do not have equally secure environments.
The biggest risk for corporate data remains when employees email documents to themselves or put data on memory sticks and then access files on their home computers, he said.
“When employees send data to personal accounts and put it on an insecure system, we can’t protect it,” said Somaini.