Emerging Security Challenges for Information Systems in Mobile Computing Environment In Universities

Universities are shifting from partially computerized to fully automated environments and technology is equally shifting from point to point to broadcasting options. These trends are resulting in mobile computing for most university users with systems accumulating enormous amount of public, private as well as confidential data on employee, students and the institution. However, mobile computing systems normally come with security challenges and different vulnerabilities that make users hesitate adopting them despite the many benefits they bring.The purpose of this Paper was to establish the emerging security challenges of information systems in mobile computing environments in universities. The study was undertaken using multi-case method andthrough scrutiny of literature on security challenges in information system. Stratified random sampling and purposeful sampling was used to select respondents from six public and two private universities. It was established that the emerging security challenges in universities in mobile computing to be rising as technology advances.The findings will help the mobile computing implementers and university management determine when there is need for enhancement of existing security approaches to mobile computing and mitigate on the future trends in security for the information systems. Security in information systems is posing challenges to organizations as they adopt new technologies such as mobile computing and as the trends in technology change. According to the government of Hong-Kong (2011) new spectrum of mobile products is emerging that combine a range of computational capabilities into one physical device. This trend encourages mobile computing in most organizations. According to Artjom, (2010) Mobile computing is the most current technology, where mobile phones can do everything a computer could, including web browsing, document processing, and playing games among others.