Verizon on Wednesday published its 2025 Mobile Security Index, a report based on a survey of nearly 800 professionals involved in the procurement, management and security of mobile devices.
The survey found that 85% of organizations have been seeing a surge in mobile device attacks, and this applies across the board, regardless of the organization’s size, location or industry.
More than three-quarters of organizations believe AI-assisted threats such as SMS phishing and deepfakes are likely to succeed, and 34% are concerned that the increasing sophistication of AI-powered attacks will significantly increase their exposure.
On the other hand, only 17% of organizations have implemented specific security controls against AI-assisted attacks, and only 12% have deployed protections against deepfake attacks.
Nearly all of the organizations that took part in the survey said their employees are regularly using gen-AI tools on mobile devices, and two-thirds are concerned that employees could provide sensitive data to these AI chatbots.
The survey found that a vast majority of organizations are confident they can quickly detect mobile device misuse by employees, and that they can quickly recover from a mobile attack.
On the other hand, entities that did suffer a security incident related to mobile devices reported experiencing downtime (47%), data loss (45%), financial penalties or fines (40%), and reputational damage (28%).
The percentage of organizations that had to deal with significant repercussions due to downtime has increased to 63%, up from 47% in 2024. Approximately one-third of those that suffered downtime said remediation was challenging and costly.
Encouragingly, 89% of organizations have a specific mobile security budget. In addition, 75% have increased mobile security spending in the past year and roughly the same percentage believe their budget should increase in the coming year as well.
In order to reduce exposure and improve resilience, organizations are advised to boost their mobile security posture through the implementation of a mobile device management (MDM) solution.
They are also advised to evaluate their protections using industry standards and best practices to identify potential gaps, implement zero-touch mobile security solutions, and deploy continuous training and testing to combat phishing.
The full Verizon 2025 Mobile Security Index is available in PDF format.
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