Mobile IT and BYOD

The growing popularity of the “BYOD” (bring your own device) approach to IT, in which employees can use their personal mobile devices and laptops for work tasks, is creating some serious challenges for business. Organizations are having trouble getting their employees to follow company policies and are struggling with insufficient budgets and staff to handle the change.

Why it matters to your business: Trying to keep employees from using their personal devices for work may seem like fighting a losing battle — and giving in might seem like a cost-saving solution. But in reality, BYOD can cost you your business if sensitive company or customer data is leaked or your network is breached. On the other hand, it’s increasingly important to employees (especially Gen Y ones) to be able to use their own mobile devices, laptops, and home PCs. To help bridge the divide, create a comprehensive BYOD policy, enforce it and set aside some extra time and budget dollars to make sure you can keep everyone’s devices secure.

Depending on your situation, you can actually shift substantial costs to employes with a BYOD strategy.  Some controls that you may need to add:

• Use Mobile Device Management to give visibility and control of devices that connect to the corporate network and contain company information.  This allows you to control policy, wipe data, and deploy mobile applications while still be able to control costs.
• Provide secure access for user owned devices by using controls like Network Access Control for network connected devices, Risk Based Authentication for web connected devices, and a registration process for mobile devices.  You need the capability to identify unknown devices.
• Determine if you need to control information in accordance with corporate policy.  Especially if you use ActiveSync and Exchange.  Data leakage protection for mobile devices and laptops is fairly straightforward using DLP tools in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange.