Managing information security for mobile devices in small and medium-sized enterprises : Information management, Information security management, mobile device

The rapid proliferation of mobile devices makes mobile security a weak point in many organisations’ security management. Though there are a number of frameworks and methods available for improving security management, few of these target mobile devices, and most are designed for large organisations. Small and medium size organisations are known to be vulnerable to mobile threats, and often subject to the same legal requirements as larger organisations. However, they typically lack the resources and specialist competences necessary to use the available frameworks. This thesis describes an Action Design Research project to devise and test a low cost, low learning curve method for improving mobile security management. The project is conducted together with a small Swedish consulting company and evaluated in several other companies. In order to solve the challenge that SMEs faces; three objectives have been set: 1. Identify existing solutions at a strategic level to managing information that is accessible with mobile devices and their suitability for SMEs. 2. Develop a framework to support SMEs to manage information in a secure way on mobile devices. 3. Evaluate the framework in practice. The results show that simple theoretical models can be integrated with well-known analysis techniques to inform managers and provide practical help for small companies to improve mobile security practice. The most important contribution to both science and practice is a structured approach for managers to deal with mobile devices, or for that matter other technology advances that do not fit into the existing management system. The journey to the final solution also produced several smaller contributions to science, for example insights from C-suites about strategies and work with mobile devices, differences and similarities between CYOD (choose your own device) and BYOD (bring your own device), the role of security policies in organisations, and twelve identified management issues with mobile devices