ISACA Finds Singapore Enterprises Are Cautious About Augmented Reality, Despite Business Benefits

ISACA Finds Singapore Enterprises Are Cautious About Augmented
Reality, Despite Business Benefits

 Survey results announced at opening day of CSX 2016 Asia
Pacific

Singapore (14 Nov 2016) —With this year’s release of Pokémon Go,
awareness of augmented reality (AR) applications soared among organizations and
consumers. Despite its popularity and potential business benefits, AR adoption
rates are slow among enterprises, according to a new study from global business technology
and cybersecurity association ISACA. The study coincides with ISACA’s first CSX 2016 Asia Pacific conference,
which opens today in Singapore. 

Many organizations
quickly leveraged the popularity of Pokémon Go
as an opportunity to attract customers. However, ISACA’s 2016 IT Risk-Reward Barometer
indicates that organizations are still hesitant to use AR for business
purposes, and consumers also have concerns about the possible risks of
Internet of Things (IoT) devices enhanced with AR. Only 21 percent of the 6,591 professionals
surveyed are convinced that the benefits of AR outweigh the risks—the majority
remain unsure.

“We expect to see this
number change in the very near future as businesses begin to view AR as a
valuable technology that results in positive business outcomes, including
improved training, education, marketing and customer experience,” said Rob
Clyde, board director of ISACA and executive advisor at BullGuard Software.

Among business
technology professionals in Singapore, security concerns posed the top barrier
for organizations adopting AR, followed by lack of skills/knowledge. Additionally:

·         More than one in three organizations (34
percent) have no plans to use AR applications within the next year.

·         Sixty percent don’t have a policy to address
the use of AR apps in the workplace.

·         Only 23 percent of respondents have used AR
outside of work.

·         Only 25 percent are confident they have a way
to detect pictures, posts and videos geotagged to their business location or
advertisements.

However, even those
who aren’t actively using AR need to be monitoring it, says Clyde. Virtual
graffiti apps using AR technology can deface buildings, landmarks and other
surfaces with negative, unauthorized imagery. Yet only nine percent of
organizations in Singapore have a program in place to monitor them.

ISACA’s annual IT Risk/Reward Barometer polls
thousands of business technology professionals and consumers worldwide to
uncover attitudes and behaviors about essential technologies and information,
and the trade-offs organizations and consumers must make in weighing both the
benefits and potential threats. This
year’s five-country consumer study – conducted in the US, UK, Australia, India
and Singapore – focused on IoT devices and those enhanced with AR.

More than three in
four consumers in each region surveyed are concerned that these enhancements
may make their devices more vulnerable to a privacy breach. In Singapore, that
number rises to 89 percent. Additionally, the majority of consumers in each
region (74% in Singapore) believe that their workplace is vulnerable to virtual
graffiti attacks.

Still, the potential
upside of AR is evident. A recent estimate from Goldman Sachs predicts that the
hardware and software market for augmented reality and virtual reality will
grow to US$80 billion by 2025.* About 80 percent of Singapore professionals indicate
that augmented reality has the potential to increase engagement in their
workplace – specifically in the areas of remote participation for training and
development, during office training sessions and for communication between
office leaders and staff.

Recommendations for
Adopting AR in the Workplace

ISACA experts offer
organizations the following recommendations to account for the risk and reward
represented by augmented reality and IoT:

·         Extend social media monitoring to AR
platforms. Leverage and
extend current social media policies and monitoring to augmented reality
platforms.

·         Consider how AR can improve your business. Training, diagnostics and marketing are
three areas with particularly strong potential.

·         Review your governance framework and update
your policies. Incorporate use of AR
as part of the business into organizational policies and procedures—including
BYOD (bring your own device) and privacy policies.

·         Build security into every part of the process. Security is a crucial component of AR
initiatives that helps ensure confidence in the data.

“Enterprises need to
work on being agile and applying sound measures around governance, security and
risk management to fully realize the benefits of these technology
advances.  Proactive monitoring for malicious activity like virtual
graffiti and data breaches is critical for businesses to gain the full value of
new technologies while mitigating risk,” said Christos Dimitriadis, Ph.D. CISA,
CISM, CRISC, chair of ISACA’s Board of Directors and group director of
Information Security for INTRALOT. 

To view global survey
results, including related graphics and expert insights, visit www.isaca.org/risk-reward-barometer.

CSX 2016 Asia Pacific
is ongoing at Marina Bay Sands from 14-16 November. The conference focuses
on practical cybersecurity solutions and guidance, tailored to every level of a
security professional’s career, and allows attendees to explore trends and
threats, exchange ideas and insights, and learn how to excel at defending their
enterprises. For more information on the event, please visit www.isaca.org/csx-asia-pacific.