Our Poll Results Are In: How IT Professionals are Handling Pokémon GO at Work

As the Pokémon GO frenzy continues to sweep the nation, and amidst news that the game gets full access to your Google account, we wanted to see how IT professionals are handling this potential security risk at work. To find out, we asked our readers to take a quick 2-minute poll yesterday. Here are the results.

Poll Demographics

Out of 70 respondents in IT and security roles:

• 8.5% are at the executive or VP level
• 40% are at the director or manager level
• 51.5% are individual contributors

Organization size:

• 1-100 employees: 28%
• 101-1,000 employees: 40%
• 1,001-5,000 employees: 15%
• 5,000+ employees: 17%

Do you think Pokémon GO is a security risk for your organization?

News broke yesterday that Pokémon GO posed a major security risk for your Google account, gaining access to your search history, personal information, Google Drive files, location history, and more. That kind of data access is usually reserved for trusted apps, not gaming apps. Niantic Inc, the developer behind the game, said it was a mistake and that they’re working on a fix.

Still, it raises questions about security risks and potentially exposing data. About half of our respondents (48%) said that they did think Pokémon GO was a security risk for their organizations. 19% said they weren’t sure. Interestingly, although 48% of our respondents saw the game as a security risk, an equal percentage (48%) do not track third-party applications, which suggests that there may be room to start monitoring external apps more closely.

Do you allow users to install third-party applications?

Most IT professionals do give their employees the freedom to install third-party applications. Almost three-quarters of our respondents (73%) said they allowed their end users to install them. Only about a quarter (22%) of respondents said they do not allow it.

Do you track third-party application use?

Although the majority of respondents allow users to install third-party apps, about half (48%) of them said that they do not track third-party application use. 40% said they do use some sort of tool or service to track it.

If you track third-party application use, have you seen Pokémon GO show up on your dashboard or console?

Out of the respondents who do track third-party application use, most of them (42%) say they have not seen Pokémon GO show up on their dashboard or console. 38% say they’re not sure, and 20% say they have indeed seen it.