Fleets should control smartphones and tablet devices, says CFC Solutions

CFC believes that fleet owners should adopt policies to control the use of smartphones and tablet devices, enabling company IT experts to decide which devices are permitted for company use and whether any security software should be installed on them.

Neville Briggs, managing director at CFC Solutions, said that while smartphones and tablet devices can be really useful when it comes to increasing employee productivity, many of the devices currently being used are bought, owned and operated by the employee and fall outside of any employer security measures.

"This can present a risk, e.g. some smartphone software gathers all kinds of information about the user and this could potentially be misused," said Briggs.

He added that as tablet devices and smartphones become more popular, there would inevitably be a greater number of viruses and spyware written that could potentially cause problems.

He concedes that most of these devices have only been around for a relatively short time and there are few pieces of malicious software around. However, the number of malware and spyware apps targeted at smartphones and similar devices is rising and will continue to do so.

"It would be surprising if smartphone spyware didn’t appear at some point in the near future that could, for example, learn the login details for the user’s work e-mail account and then access the mailbox easily," said Briggs. "Software that accesses the GPS function in smartphones and tablets could even tell a third party the current location of an employee and track their movements. There are all kinds of worrying possibilities."