Network Solutions Unlimited Blog

With mobile devices being such a big part of doing business, It’s crucial that your business has a plan to manage them. Many times this comes with a lot of hand-wringing. One of the biggest issues is whether or not the business invests in their employee mobility or if they simply demand that they gain use of employee-owned devices. In today’s blog we’ll go through the mobile management strategies of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE).

There’s no denying that running a successful business comes with its fair share of costs, and many would argue that some of these costs are anything but fair. As such, it makes sense to try and minimize your operating expenses by any sustainable means. Let’s go over one such cost-saving measure you can implement—Bring Your Own Device policies—and address how to do so without shortchanging your business’ security in the process.

As remote work has become more common, so have tools that assist mobility and Bring Your Own Device strategies. Considering this, businesses need the means to keep control of their data and the technology that can access it. To do so, Mobile Device Management cannot be oversold as a benefit.

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, continues to grow into one of the most accepted practices within an organization. Yet, one major problem has always plagued BYOD in the form of security. Thankfully, with the help of mobile device management, businesses are able to minimize this risk while leveraging the benefits that BYOD offers.

No doubt you’ve noticed the increased use of smartphones. No matter where you go, people are on their phones. Sometimes they are using them in places you wouldn’t even imagine. For the modern business, employee smartphone usage can be a major pain in the side. Today, we’ll go into how smartphone usage helps and hurts a business and how to go about keeping employees from being on their phones for large chunks of the workday.

Bring Your Own Device is a hot trend in today’s business environment, as it creates a ton of opportunities for businesses to cut costs. However, this is only true if you implement a BYOD policy that your organization can take advantage of, as it creates considerable problems for your unprepared businesses.

Do you let your employees bring their own devices in for use on your company network or Wi-Fi connection? If so, we’re sure that they love the freedom that you provide for them, but we must warn you of the dangers that this can bring to an otherwise careful business. We’ll discuss some of the benefits, as well as the pitfalls, of allowing your employees to use personal devices in the workplace.

Mobile devices have grown extraordinarily popular in the workplace. Organizations find them to be of considerable value for staying connected and getting work done while outside the office. This trend has presented a serious risk in the form of network and data security. How can businesses support mobile devices in the workplace, without compromising on the security of the device and the data it holds?

Data leakage is one of the major pain points of businesses that allow employee-owned mobile devices in the workplace. Every business has sensitive information that needs to be secured from malicious entities, no matter how benign it seems. As the business owner, it’s your responsibility to ensure that you have a policy put into place to protect your data. In the case of mobile devices, you need a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy that dictates how an employee uses their mobile devices for work purposes.

A recent study by Bitglass shows that 72 percent of various organizations, including financial, technology, healthcare, government, and education, feel that BYOD should be supported for at least some of their employees. As for mobile device management, which is an organization’s control over devices used by employees, only 14 percent of organizations used solutions that protect data with device encryption. This is a significant difference that reveals a tricky situation: company’s like the idea of BYOD, but don’t (or aren’t able to) implement a mobile device management solution.

Naturally, you can’t let your business be the next to lose information due to mobile security threats. Implementing a mobile device management solution from Network Solutions Unlimited can help your business retain complete control over the data that’s stored on your employees’ mobile devices. You can restrict access to data based on work role, whitelist and blacklist app data, and even remotely wipe devices:

• Whitelisting and blacklisting apps: Some applications will request access to information stored on a mobile device, but some won’t have any real reason to have access. For example, a flashlight app has no business accessing your phone’s contacts or geographical location. By whitelisting and blacklisting apps, you can minimize your data’s exposure to threats.
• Role-based user access: One of the easiest ways to minimize danger to your organization’s data is to limit who has access to it. By integrating role-based user access, you can allow your team to access data that they need to do their jobs properly, and keep them from accessing that which they don’t.
• Remote wiping: Sometimes the best way to prevent a data breach is by remotely wiping data from a lost or stolen device. You shouldn’t rely on a lost device showing back up, especially if it were left in a public place like a bus or subway station. You should always be prepared for a worst-case scenario like this.

For more information about BYOD and mobile device management solutions, reach out to Network Solutions Unlimited at (217) 428-6449.