Smartphone information security awareness: A victim of operational pressures.

Smartphone information security awareness describes the knowledge, attitude and behaviour that employees apply to the security of the organisational information that they access, process and store on their smartphone devices. The surge in the number of smartphone devices connecting to organisational systems and used to process organisational data has enabled a new level of operational efficiency. While employees are aware of the benefits they enjoy by bringing their personal devices into the workplace, managers too are aware of the benefits of having a constantly connected workforce. Unfortunately, those aware of the risks to information security do not share an equal level of enthusiasm. These devices are owned by employees who are not adequately skilled to configure the security settings for acceptable security of that information. Moreover, routine information security awareness programmes, even if applied, gradually fade into the daily rush of operations from the day they are completed.