| dc.description.abstract | Recent years have seen an explosion in consumer mobile computing devices and this has
been accompanied by falling prices that make these mobile devices within easy reach of
the common man. As a result, organizations that traditionally allowed access to corporate
systems through fixed company owned computers are seeing increased numbers of
employees purchasing their own mobile devices and demanding to have them enabled to
access corporate resources. This is what Bring your own device (BYOD) is. The adoption
of BYOD has raised concerns which organizations have to address. This study sought to
find out the extent to which BYOD has been adopted in organizations, the accompanying
benefits, the threats associated with BYOD, and the counter-measures that organizations
have put in place. The study focused on all 61 organizations as listed on the Nairobi
Securities Exchange Limited (NSE). A structured questionnaire was used to collect data
from respondents within the selected organizations in charge of Information Technology.
These respondents included IT managers, IT security managers and IT officers. The data
collected was analyzed using frequency, percentages, means, standard deviation and
factor analysis. The results were presented using tables and charts. The study revealed
that over ninety percent of organizations in the NSE have allowed BYOD in one form or
the other. It was also revealed that over half of all the companies studied allowed over 50%
of the staff to use their own personal devices for work-related tasks. It was also found
that most of the organizations were not ready for BYOD. Most did not have BYOD
specific counter-measures in place and instead relied on old security infrastructures that
may not be suitable for mobile devices. The top benefit that organizations experienced
from adopting BYOD was that of having their employees work flexible hours. The study
recommended that organization should address BYOD threats by developing proper
policy and procedures, investing in training employees and adopting mobile device
management solutions. | en_US |
