Are employees in your office bringing their own laptops to work? Or perhaps accessing the Internet on a personal iPad? Whether we’re ready or not, BYOD is becoming an increasingly popular trend in today’s workplace. The question is how to handle it.
Many employers have embraced BYOD as a way to cut costs and increase productivity. But as overall use of private mobile devices for office work has increased, so has the potential number of privacy concerns raised for both organizations and individuals.
By some estimates, approximately 37 percent of organizations currently permit employees to connect to company networks from personally owned smartphones.
Mobile industry analysts are forecasting that as the number of employees using their own mobile devices to work increases, organizations will begin to implement tighter security measures to control access and actions. Mobile Device Management, or MDM, systems, tools and services could be used to increase security.
For example, if a user loses their smartphone, MDM systems can be used to locate it and wipe the memory card clean of sensitive data. But lost or stolen phones are only one security issue. Malware installed on a phone can be introduced into the corporate network and spread.
Organizations can counter additional security risks with MDM systems that monitor use of company business apps, databases and e-mail. The system could also be used to monitor downloads, and the amount of time spent on games and social apps.
In addition, an employer could choose to block access to apps stores, use the GPS function in the device to monitor location and disable phone cameras.
According to an article published in USA Today, despite the trend “the vast majority of companies have only dipped their toes into BYOD. Some 83 percent of 350 large companies recently surveyed by security firm Blue Coat permitted access to e-mail from employee-owned devices. Yet, only 24 percent allowed access to sales force automaton programs and 19 percent to supply chain management apps.”
It will now be up to employers to engage in the process of developing a strategy for managing mobile devices as the number of employees using them increases. Employees will have to decide whether or not they want to use personal devices that can be monitored by MDM systems and potentially lose some of their privacy.
The balance between security and privacy may have to be created sooner than later, due to another emerging work/home interfacing trend toward a steadily growing number of workers who telecommute.
The Wall Street Journal reported in June that the number of employees who work remotely has nearly doubled during the last decade among all full-time, non-self-employed U.S. workers. That being said, the report suggests that only about 2 percent of U.S. full-time employees regularly work from home. The bottom line: There’s plenty of room to grow, and plenty of BYOD challenges to resolve before that happens.