Running Head: MOBILE TECHNOLOGY RISK MANAGEMENT
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Mobile Technology Risk Management
Article Review 2
Ryan Jones
Liberty University
CSCI 561
October 10, 2018
MOBILE TECHNOLOGY RISK MANAGEMENT
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Bibliographical Reference
Lize-Marie Sahd, & Rudman, R. (2016). Mobile technology risk management. Journal of
Applied Business Research, 32(4), 1079-1096.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.19030/jabr.v32i4.9723
Objectives
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Corporate governance and the governance of mobility.
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Risks that affect the users and the mobile technology’s ability to function as intended and
risks that affect the enterprise strategies and objectives.
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Identify all internal and external processes and resources that influence mobile
technology governance.
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How data is safeguarded.
Summary
The purpose of this article is to address the risks involved in mobile technology and how
business is not doing their job to protect themselves. To be able to develop controls in order to
fully address any risks related to mobile technology, a business needs to investigate corporate
and IT governance first. Policies and objectives created for IT governance should align with
company values, business strategies, risk management, resource optimization, accountabilities
and responsibilities that are assigned, and performance monitoring. Mobility technology and its
pervasive ways cause a particularly challenging problem with IT risk management. IT risk
management introduces many new risks to all aspects of business, not just on the mobile side of
the business.
Risks identified at the operational level are split into two separate groups: risks that affect
users and the ability for mobile technology to function and risks that affect the enterprise
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strategies and objectives. The users and technology are affected by the following risk factors:
interoperability, user experience, connectivity, and IT support. Interoperability is concerned with
various mobile devices communicating with each other through networks, operating systems,
and applications. The goal here is for everyone to communicate successfully. User experience is
the desire to make mobile technology able to deliver on its promised benefits of improved
productivity, communication, and processes. In order for these to be accomplished the user
needs to be satisfied within the areas of the device itself, speed, connection availability, and the
software being used. All of these things need to be considered while also realizing that mobile
devices have severe limitations such as screen size, keyboard size, limited memory, slow
processor, and battery life. Since wireless networks are largely started as ad hoc connections
these wireless networks do not support reliable service delivery. Furthermore, reliable service
delivery is complicated by communication traffic, data-rich applications, bandwidth bottlenecks,
signal disturbances, and dead zones. IT support can be very difficult as well because of many
device types, related versions of operating systems, user mobility, and real-time support
expectations.
Enterprises are affected by the following strategies and objectives: continuity, security,
cost, and data ownership. Continuity is concerned with the business’s ability to continue to do
business without certain events stopping the business process. Events that can occur are: loss or
theft of device, connectivity, security breaches, and security attacks. Security is mainly
concerned with keeping information stored on mobile devices secure and preventing any attacks
on the network. Mobile devices bring about many new threats and this is not made easier with
the fact that wireless networks are more susceptible to malicious attacks. Mobile devices also
come with a hefty price tag when software, networking, security, among other things are
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considered. Data ownership only becomes an issue when content is created on personal devices
outside the office. From here, intellectual property rights mainly take over but become uncertain
because of the personal device usage.
In order to formulate mobile solution strategies, businesses need to identify all internal
and external processes and resources influenced. They also should be developing mobile
objectives and create policies in support of these objectives. Businesses need to consider the
following in order to create a solid mobile strategy: Specify whether to outsource or develop in-
house technology, constantly monitor and update policies, identify all technology components.
There are many ways in which properly safeguard data. Some of them are as follows:
remote data wipe, data fading, poison pill, data storage, containerization, intellectual property
protection.
Results
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The reader will learn what ails a business when considering mobile devices.
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It is not as easy as everyone thinks it is to set up a mobile network. There are many
factors that hinder the network from acting like it is supposed to.
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Be wary of network security as wireless networks are easily susceptible to attacks.
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Many businesses seem to not have very well planned wireless networks so when joining a
new company it may be beneficial to review policies. An opportunity may arise to get
the chance to create or update policies.
Critique
The authors did a very good job with this topic. I liked how they made the effort to
define the terms when necessary. This helps those readers who may not be well versed in IT
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terminology. They structured the article well and made the effort to make sure everything
progressed in such a manner that the new information built from the previous information. All in
all it was very well written and very educational.
Questions
1. In the risk section that I mentioned in the summary, it seemed lacking. Why were there
not more definitive definitions of the risk terms?
2. Why is the final section (4.3.4) so short? Could it not have been expanded?
3. What enterprise risks would also affect the user?
