"If the organization doesn't start looking at their data in terms of who, what, why and where the access to that data needs to occur, they won't be able to properly encrypt the data and know what devices need to decrypt the data," states Davis. "Furthermore, when it comes to cloud, if you don't encrypt and have control of your keys, you are basing your security on the fact that the cloud provider promises to implement security at or above the level your organization does, and, sadly, most organizations don't check to see that the cloud provider actually meets the same level of security requirements."
From a mobility perspective, enterprises have been lucky because of the type of data typically being stored on mobile devices, Davis says. End users have not wanted to work with large documents, spreadsheets and other files not easily viewable on mobile devices, but as the form factors, available applications and performance of mobile devices have increased, users are becoming more likely to work with such data on their smartphones and tablets.
"Mobility has enabled anywhere, anytime access. I call it the Starbucks problem. Every Starbucks is now the corner office for most workers, and mobility is going to continue to demand that employees access files anywhere from any device," he says.
IT organizations need to ask themselves some tough questions about security and encryption, with a focus on securing data that is not under their control (because most of those mobile devices aren't). The solution to the problem is usually taking a data-centric approach to security instead of the traditional premise-based model, says Davis.
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