Increasing use of personal devices for work purposes by government employees is adding to cybersecurity risks, says a report from a firm that provides security services to agencies at the federal and other levels.
As telework has grown, agencies have responded to employee’s demands to use mobile devices by adopting “bring your own device,” or BYOD, programs, says the report Lookout, Inc. “Unfortunately, this increased flexibility also introduces additional challenges to the protection of mobile endpoints,” it said.
“Personal mobile devices represent the new frontier of shadow IT with many agency employees using tablets, smartphones, and Chromebooks for telework. This type of shadow BYOD illuminates what little visibility IT and security teams had into unmanaged devices” connecting to agency systems from outside.
The report noted a 2021 executive order and later OMB guidance to beef up cybersecurity in agency systems but said that personal devices pose a distinct challenge because they “are more frequently exposed to phishing” attacks and “connect to a broader range of websites and use a greater variety of apps” which in turn increases the number of potential vulnerabilities.
It said that in an analysis of its clients, it found an increase in “mobile fishing exposure rates” for devices associated with federal employees in 2021 and continuing into the first half of this year. About two-thirds of attacks against those devices seek to install malware onto a system and half of such attacks seek to steal sign-in credentials, with 15 percent seeking to do both, it said.
“Cybercriminals are targeting mobile devices as an entry point for executing more invasive and persistent attacks. All government entities need mobile security that includes endpoint detection and response capabilities to proactively hunt for these threats, which have penetrated your environment,” it said.
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