In this time and age, mobility sits at the top of people’s priority. The boundless advancement of wireless connectivity, coupled with an incremental, fast development of powerful smartphones, tablets, and laptops changed the way we use the internet to get things done in both of our personal and professional lives. In line with these developments, workforces are also becoming increasingly mobile, allowing employees to use their own, personal devices in the workplace. While this emphasis on mobility have shown to have some hugely positive effects on the morale of the employees, it also possesses some greater risks of data loss through lost devices or compromised cybersecurity. Because of its very nature of being anywhere, anytime; setting up effective security measures is also quite complicated.
What Does BYOD Mean?
BYOD is an acronym used to refer to the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ policies of an organization. It is the practice of allowing employees of an organization to use their own, personal smartphones, tablets, laptops, or other such devices with the purpose of performing work related tasks.
Traditionally, companies used to provide all the workplace devices for their employees. Not so much anymore. Since 2016, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs have experienced an increasing amount of popularity. With the people already owning some powerful mobile devices and often carrying them to their workplaces, businesses and other organizations are putting BYOD policies in place to protect themselves. At the same time, some other companies are trying to keep both practices, offering employees the chance to choose between BYOD or company supplied devices.
However, it’s not the cost-cutting measures that are driving this growing trend. A research conducted by the Information Security Group & Crowd Research Partner, have shown to have some major benefits of implementing such policies. Those are:
BYOD increases employee mobility by 63%
Raises overall satisfaction of the employees by 56%
Increases the productivity level of the workforce by 55%
To put things into the context, about 43% of employees have confirmed to access their emails on their smartphones with a view to get prepared on-the-go and ease their workload. Being able to work on their own devices also ensures maximum comfortability and leads to increased productivity.
Security Risks Posed by BYOD Policies
Despite the growing trend, BYOD remains a policy that requires some careful considerations. It possesses as much risk as the opportunities. According to the same research mentioned above, more than 30% of responding security professionals have admitted about the heightened burden a BYOD policy imposes on their cybersecurity resources. With almost half of the companies with BYOD policy suffering from data breaches, for some organizations, the risks are not worth it.
However, with the right approach to identifying security risks, along with the implementation of an effective BYOD policy; it is possible to eliminate the risks to the minimum and enjoy the benefits. So, let’s find out some of the most significant IT security risks posed by BYOD programs below.
Loss of Sensitive Data: Personal devices such as smartphones are prone to getting lost or stolen. Therefore, regardless of what work related purposes a device has been used, it poses a major risk of data leakage in case of it being misplaced or stolen. Malware and viruses affecting the devices, along with rogue wireless connectivity can also put the data at risks of getting exposed or lost. According to statistics, some 40% of major data breaches were caused by lost or stolen.
To mitigate the risks, companies can implement a mobile device management (MDM) programs to remotely erase the data of a stolen device. The use of VPN, as well as the implementation of smarter data provisioning can also help with the cause.
Sketchy Apps and Device Infection: The app stores for smart devices are filled with malicious applications that runs in the background and collect sensitive, personal data without giving proper notification to the users. Moreover, devices can also be infected by out of date operating systems, phishing emails and web links, malicious files, etc. In some cases, these malicious apps can take over the administrative control of the devices, steal data, and cause severe damages to the devices.
By training the employees and sharing the knowledge of the best practices when it comes to installing and using apps can help to mitigate this problem. The IT professionals should also run a monitoring program to ensure that the devices are updated with the latest operating software.
Poor Policies and a Lack of Effective Management: Many companies tend to jump on the BYOD bandwagon without much thought or preparations. While it’s all good and easy, a lack of policies may lead to some massive fine, if your organization needs to comply with HIPAA, PCI DSS, or other regulatory bodies. Also, a lack of coherent plan allows for employees to be irresponsible with their devices and cause damage to the company in the process. In 2014, a survey conducted by the Tech Pro Research has found that 60% of the companies do not remove their business data from the devices of their ex-employees, which is surely down to a lack of management plan and consistent monitoring.
The solution is, of course, to have a well thought-out, company-wide policy that addresses things like mandatory use of VPN, restricted access to the most sensitive data, two-factor authentication, mobile device management, regular removal of company data, etc.
In conclusion, implementing BYOD program is the demand of the modern time. It is quite impossible, and somewhat foolish not to take advantage of the increased mobility such programs can offer. It’s certainly impossible to exert the totalitarian control over the personally owned devices, but that doesn’t mean a company has to be vulnerable to data losses. The security risks it possesses can easily be minimized with a smart policy in action.