Does this sound familiar?
It’s Saturday evening. You’re making some popcorn and gathering the sugary snacks to munch on during family movie time with the kids. Before settling in, you take a quick glance at your email on your personal smartphone.
You realize there’s a small crisis brewing that could turn your Monday upside down, but there’s hope of turning it around. You grab your personal tablet and remote login to the work network to access your computer at the office. In a quick email, you send those needed reports to the team working the entire weekend on an important presentation.
In less than 10 minutes, crisis averted. Now you can really enjoy your Saturday evening.
BYOD Opportunities
If this scenario sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The New Way of Work Study, polling 2,007 employees aged 18-64, revealed that 78 percent of respondents said they used their own devices for work including smartphones, tablets and laptops.
For many employers, embracing the new age of bring your own device (BYOD) is not an option, but rather a necessity. Employees prefer using their personal devices and are doing so to be more productive and effective, with or without company approval.
Many companies are realizing quickly they have no choice but to accept the trend. That means IT managers and departments are working to mitigate the data and network security dangers that come along with the benefits of increased employee satisfaction and productivity.
With companies cashing in on the great opportunities they stand to gain from BYOD, the next step for IT managers is to recognize the potential cyber security hot spots to reduce network and data breaches.
If employees at your company are anything like the 57 percent of the New Way to Work Study respondents indicating that their workplaces did not provide technical support for their personal devices, cyber security risks are higher than you think.
Education is key with BYOD, and IT managers need to know about the most important tactics to successfully navigate this dangerous terrain. Here’s a few that should be emphasized:
Lost or Stolen Devices
Everybody hates losing a device or, worse yet, realizing a laptop, tablet or smartphone has been stolen. In fact, the Security for Business Innovation Council—a team composed of Global 1000 information security leaders—cited lost or stolen BYODs as its top concern.
The cyber security dangers here are twofold. First, BYODs that go missing will likely contain sensitive data and, more importantly, less than 1 in 4 BYODs can be remotely wiped.
Malware
When BYODs bypass inbound filters normally applied to company assigned devices, BYODs are now vulnerable to malware. Malware is a fast-growing risk, particularly for Android devices. BYODs that bypass outbound filters elevate the risk of non-compliance with data privacy laws and regulatory requirements.
As BYOD becomes more widespread, so will the threat of malware.
Data Sharing
All that additional productivity means employees are connecting to company networks using home PCs and other personal devices. They then return to the office to share documents between personal computers and office desktops. This leaves corporate networks vulnerable to attack.
These “productive” activities can have global consequences when unsecured personal devices are used to connect to the corporate network. This is just the opening hackers look for to break into a company’s mainframe and wreak havoc.
Finally, from a cyber-security perspective, it’s common knowledge that personal computers are potentially dangerous devices simply because individuals typically don’t pay much attention to security precautions. These include virus updates, software updates, spam filters and accessing unsecured networks.
About the Author: Noah Gamer is a driven business leader with experience in Internet marketing, web software development and eCommerce. Currently, he develops security solutions for small businesses.
