Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a trend that’s catching on quickly with employers and employees alike. Not only does allowing workers to use their own devices on the job create a much more enjoyable experience for them, it also helps to keep costs low for employers making it a win-win situation for everybody involved. However, when it comes to implementing BYOD in the workplace, it’s important to take a number of cloud security factors into consideration.
Mobile devices come in all shapes and sizes from laptops to smartphones, which is why finding security solutions that work with all of them is absolutely crucial when your employees are accessing information from the company cloud on their own devices.
Understanding BYOD Risks
BYOD schemes pose a number of different security risks. With some of these risks widely recognized and others not so easily understood, it’s crucial that you have a good grasp on the type of risks which you’ll be faced with once you allow your employees to work from their own devices.
Lost or stolen devices that employees bring to work is one of the main concerns for many employers, along with the risk of many devices – particularly laptops or Android devices – being vulnerable to viruses and malware. Because you can’t lock down employees’ own devices as you would those that are company provided, it’s vital to have a set of policies in place for any workers who choose to bring their own device to work.
Security Software
Although your employees are providing their own devices, it’s important that you step in to make sure that the data that is going to be stored on these devices is protected.
There are many different anti-virus and security software options available for all types of mobile devices, and you should make it company policy that if an employee wishes to bring their own device to work from they must have a security software program of your choosing installed on it. You can get a range of business and retail data security programs which can be used on every type of mobile device to protect any sensitive data stored on them.
Remote Controlling
Since the risk of losing a device or having a device stolen when company data is stored on it poses a huge threat to BYOD employers, it’s crucial that devices which can only be controlled or wiped remotely via the cloud should such an event happen be allowed by employees for work.
Thankfully, most modern mobile devices easily allow for such control in the event of loss or theft, such as iPhones and iPads which can be tracked, blocked, or completely wiped using the Find My iPhone feature from a separate device. Other mobile devices have other security features to protect data in the event of loss or theft, such as restrictions on passcodes – i.e. the device is wiped after ten unsuccessful passcode attempts.
When you understand the risks and how to deal with them, the benefits of BYOD can far outweigh the disadvantages!
