Every year 100,000 mobile telephones are lost or stolen in Norway. One taxi company in Oslo alone reports that 1,000 phones a month are left in their cabs. In addition a large number of PCs and telephones are left at the security checkpoint at Oslo Airport Gardermoen. While 95 per cent return to retrieve their PCs, only 10 per cent of owners return to pick up their mobile telephones. According to the Norwegian Business and Industry Security Council, misplaced mobile phones represent an enormous security risk to Norwegian companies.
With Mobil Kontroll, the new administration service from Telenor, companies can now easily improve mobile security without investing in either equipment or skills as Telenor is responsible for operating the solution:
"We save increasing amounts of confidential information on our mobile phones so lost and stolen mobile phones can cause big headaches if they fall into the wrong hands. By using Mobil Kontroll from Telenor, companies can easily delete information," says Abraham Foss, head of Telenor Business.
A "killpill", or deleting information from misplaced mobiles, is one of several services included in Mobil Kontroll. An employee who has lost a mobile phone can have content deleted by ringing Telenor's customer service centre on 09000 at any time of the day or night. The administration tool also makes it easier to roll out new applications to employees' mobile phones, and if an employee loses a mobile phone it makes it easier to install any company-specific configuration on replacement phones.
"The employee can quickly be fully operative once again with a new telephone, which clearly gives an efficiency improvement," says Foss.
BundeGruppen, a construction and property company, chose Mobil Kontroll from Telenor when it was looking for a solution that gave it better control over employees' mobile telephones.
"Mobil Kontroll is very well suited to a medium-sized company such as BundeGruppen. Some of the things we will use the service for are to roll out antivirus software to our Windows-based telephones and to delete content or lock telephones that have been lost or stolen," says Rune Ågedal, IT Manager at BundeGruppen.
Two out of three companies lack mobile security routines
The sharp increase in use of companies' mobile phones to send and receive e-mail and run other business applications means there is now a need for a security solution for these phones. A new survey by Telenor shows that 40 per cent of companies have started using mobile phones to send and receive e-mail. E-mails and attachments often contain confidential information that should not be read by just anybody.
Managers and employees working in sales are the biggest group to use e-mail on their mobile phones. 89 per cent say they are happy with the solution and more than 60 per cent say mobile e-mail makes them more efficient. At the same time, Telenor's survey reveals that Norwegian companies are realising that loss and theft of mobile phones is a genuine security issue and represents a real danger if information falls into the wrong hands. 26 per cent say that lost phones represent a very high or quite high security risk for the company, and while 86 per cent of companies have routines for IT security, only 28 per cent of those asked in the survey said that they have security routines for using and storing mobile telephones.
According to Gartner, an IT research and advisory company, 30 per cent of knowledge workers will have access to their company' applications and services via mobile terminals by 2012. 40 per cent of the IT managers Gartner has spoken to think administration and security is the biggest challenge concerning mobile telephones.
Facts from the Telenor survey:
15 per cent of the companies have lost mobile phones or had them stolen in the last year
20 per cent of the companies think theft of mobile phones is a big security risk
60 per cent synchronise e-mail, calendars and contacts
86 per cent of companies have IT security routines
28 per cent have routines for using and storing mobile telephones
Facts about Mobil Kontroll
Mobil Kontroll gives companies an overview and control over the mobile phones they provide to their employees. The company has access to an advanced administration tool without investing in equipment or skills as Telenor is responsible for operation of the solution.
The following tasks can be carried out centrally:
- Deleting content on lost or stolen mobile phones (including memory cards)
- Sending or changing configurations and applications on the company's mobile phones, for example, e-mail, CRM systems, MMS or bookmarks for often used sites
- Locking a mobile telephone using a PIN code if it is misplaced
- Listing software and configurations on mobile phones
- Customising content and software for different users and user groups
- Reporting
For further information about Mobil Kontroll, please contact:
Elisabeth Evjen, Information Manager at Telenor
Mobile (+47) 41 27 00 00
