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A recent report from Juniper Research has shown that there are more and more smartphones in the enterprise and that the BYOD trend is increasing, which in turn raises security fears.

According to Juniper, by 2014 there will be 350 million employee owned smartphones and tablets in the enterprise, a substantial increase on the 150m there currently are.

The study, entitled “Mobile Security Strategies: Threats, Solutions and Market Forecasts”, focused on four rubrics which contribute to a greater need for security:

• Increased smartphone penetration
• Proliferation of free and paid apps
• High volume of data usage
• Mobile banking, payments and ticket adoption

It’s safe to assume security is a primary factor in the hesitation of some organisations to fully adopt BYOD. Can companies trust that sensitive work data won’t end up in the wrong hands?

Recent research from Forrester indicated that smartphone usage among US IT workers – not filtering out BYOD – will treble by next year, so the market is clearly there.

The research notes that Western Europe will continue to have the most consumer-owned devices in the enterprise, with predicted 2014 figures carrying a similar pattern to current figures.

“However, some of the public sector organisations and government organisations have been very critical about adopting BYOD strategies,” the report author Nitin Bhas stated.

The report explains that the increased prominence of mobile commerce, such as payments and banking, has meant different security measures are needed to counter each risk posed.

Alarmingly, according to the research the majority of employees did not have any security software installed, nor were company materials protected.

Despite the assumed prevalence of BYOD, a few recent studies have appeared to agree with Juniper and arguably shown that this might not be true.

A report from the International Data Centre (IDC) found that in Europe, while most European organisations ‘tolerate’ BYOD initiatives, less than one fifth of them run properly governed BYOD programmes over fears of data leakage and lack of control.

Similarly, Dimension Data filed a study which said that in the US around 60% of companies still retain control of mobile device liability, and that the primary reason for embracing BYOD was to keep employees happy.

Last week Telsyte published data which showed just over half (54%) of Australian organisations allow BYOD for smartphones.

But what do you think? Is security still too much of an issue for BYOD, or are the increasing numbers papering over the cracks?