The average person wouldn’t think twice about bringing a personal device to use at work. Plus, having employees bring their own devices instead of paying for a variety of work devices may sound appealing to many business owners. The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) approach could allow new businesses to launch quicker and increase opportunities for productivity for your employees, which seems pretty attractive from the surface level. Saving files and accessing work accounts from your own device can’t be that dangerous, right? Wrong. There are actually several risks surrounding working on a personal device instead of an employer-owned device.
BYOD Policies Can Increase Security Threats
For example, allowing your employees to work from devices not supplied by your company can open huge opportunities for data theft. When the individual leaves the employment of your company, that data moves with them instead of staying safely in place on a work device in your office. Employees using personal devices, particularly when not in the office, and especially in airports, hotels and restaurants, may unknowingly send out a restricted or sensitive files using an unsecured Wi-fi network, creating a possible exposure of your information, or that of clients and customers, to a rogue actor. Cybercriminals are always looking for unsuspecting, vulnerable devices to prey upon; if an employee were to make a mistake, like the one above, with an unprotected personal device, that could cause enormous damage to your company and reputation.
Personal devices, without anti-virus or malware scanning software installed, that are accessing company information increase your risk of a data breach exponentially when used in connection with your office network. If an employee were to accidentally download an application to their personal device with hidden malware or viruses in it, and then utilize that personal device at work, your company’s security would be facing a risk of a data breach and data theft. It is likely that personal applications used by employees are not as strict with their security measures or requirements, making devices with these applications installed much more at risk. If an employee’s personal account is hacked, and they’ve used their personal devices to access private corporate data or confidential information about your company, you may be in trouble as well. An improperly managed device can be a huge threat to the digital safety of you and your business.
More Dangers Of Using Personal Devices
Another consideration to think about is if an employee were to lose their device or have it stolen, and the device had company information saved to the local drive on it, without the proper security protocols set in place, you and your employees might be in for a huge headache. Not only can that cause a major inconvenience to your workday, but it could also be disastrous to the security of any personal or sensitive information kept by your business. Any accounts, data, payment information, or personal information could now be found by a hacker who manages to access the contents of the device. Problems like these could even lead to legal problems since data breaches could be used by hackers to ruin the reputation of your business irreparably.
It is extremely important to the security of your business to install the proper security measures on each work device an employee will be using, and to train the employee on how to use the device safely and properly, which is much easier done with specified work devices. With a company-owned device, you can have complete control of the security measures put in place to protect it, including solutions such as mobile device management that would allow for tracking and/or remote wiping of a lost or stolen device. There can be significant costs involved, and logistics to work out, though, in having the company provide all mobile devices as well as MDM. If you opt to permit the use of personal devices, instead, it is recommended that you implement and enforce a good BYOD policy where you require certain safeguards and security measures to protect your network and information. It may also be necessary to take an inventory of all the devices accessing your company network.
Having An Effective BYOD Policy
In order to have an effective BYOD policy in place at your company, you need to first make what the term means to you and your business clear to your employees. Let your employees know what to expect with the policy by giving them your definition of BYOD and explain how it applies to them. You also need to make it clear which devices, applications, or software are allowed, and which are not, and what your employees can and cannot do on the devices. Give your employees a straight-forward idea of who will be paying for, servicing, and managing the device, what the limits will be for using it for job related functions, who has control of it, and how they will be able to contact their coworkers using the device. Setting requirements for the security of the devices may be crucial, like requiring two-factor authentication and/or strong passwords or installing anti-virus software. Also, determine how personal data and company data will be separated on the device. It may be helpful to meet with a lawyer to determine how your policies will be set in place.
An IT partner, like Blue Oak, will be able to help you with your IT needs whether you have a BYOD policy or whether you issue business-owned devices. We can protect your devices with antivirus and malware protection software, plus we offer many more managed IT services like email hosting, data backup, and cloud solutions that can all make running your business much easier!
Read our previous post here: Why Is The Cost Of Cyber Insurance Going Up?
