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Dear Mr. or Ms. CIO,
Doesn’t this new trend of Bring Your Own Device to work, or BYOD for short, chill you to the core? Doesn’t that simple acronym – BYOD – strike fear in your heart, and make your knees weak?
Why? Why should four little letters strike such fear in you, one of your industry’s most powerful technologists with millions of dollars of security deployed to protect your business networks and resources?
A simple reason.
Users, me, you, all of us.
Just think if you, me and all of our co-workers – every employee in your company – were suddenly able to access your corporate network, its resources and private data treasures all from our mobile devices – smartphones, tablets and the like. It wouldn’t matter whether the mobile device was issued by your company, or if it is a personal mobile device, self purchased. The make, model, mobile OS, even service provider would be inconsequential. Every employee with access rights would be able to access your company’s network, resources and data.
Scary thought, isn’t it?
Your employees might like it because they could work from anywhere – their home, on the road, at the beach, anywhere. Your company would like it because employees could work anytime, day or night, no matter where they are, plus they’d be easily accessible, too. Your company would benefit because employee productivity would skyrocket. All good stuff, a win-win for everybody, right?
Now, ponder this nightmarish scenario. Think of the pandemonium that would occur, the confusion, the shear terror should a virus, spyware or other malware infestation spring forth from one of your employee’s mobile devices – one of their own, personal smartphones or tablets – like a coiled viper, and infiltrate and poison your corporate network and its resources, the technological backbone of your company.
Or, let’s say an employee’s personal mobile device is lost or stolen – of course, only after they had downloaded a copy of your company’s top-secret IP to the device. And, as (bad) luck would have it, the user never set a passcode on their device, so whoever finds or has stolen the device has unfettered access to your company’s crown jewels!
Or, consider if one of your loyal employees goes rogue and starts snapping pictures of all of your company’s sensitive designs with their smartphone. Then, they decide to share all of those IP-laden designs with a peer-to-peer app.
How could one, teensy, little mobile device wreak such havoc and pain – possibly bringing your sophisticated, protected corporate network or even the company itself to its knees?
Yet another simple answer.
Because of you, me, all of us.
Consider this: Would you ever web surf, click on unknown links, and open email attachments from people you don’t know from your notebook PC? No, probably not. Would you do any or all of this – let alone consider connecting to the Web – without any malware protection – antivirus, anti-spam, or the like? No way, never, right? You’d probably think a person who would do that is just begging for their identity to be stolen!
And, you wouldn’t put all of your sensitive, personal data – your ID numbers, bank account numbers, and so on – on an unencrypted, insecure thumb drive and carry it around in your pocket, right? That would only be inviting identity theft, or even worse!
Finally, you wouldn’t consider leaving your personal identification, passport, bank account statements, and so on lying around all over your house and invite strangers in for an “open house”, right?
But, now ask yourself this: When was the last time you surfed the web from your smartphone or tablet, or opened email attachments from someone you don’t know on your mobile device? When was the last time you really read the permissions for the apps you download to your smartphone or tablet device? Do you store sensitive personal and corporate data on your smartphone or other mobile device? And, have you ever had a mobile device lost or stolen?
And, the big question: Do you have any mobile security or remote device management for your smartphone or tablet?
If the answer is “No”, then you’re just like the majority of mobile device owners and probably most of your company’s employees. Imagine if you left mobile security up to your employees. How many do you think would actually buy mobile security software for their smartphone or tablet? A recent survey by Internet security software developer BullGuard indicated that 53% of users were unaware of security software for smartphones.
Without mobile security and device management, a smartphone or tablet, the user, and any personal or corporate information stored on that device – even saved passwords to banking or investment sites, to social networking sites, even to the user’s corporate VPN – are all vulnerable.
That’s why you and your employees need mobile security and device management. It’s a “must-have” app for all mobile devices – but especially those mobile devices that are allowed to access your company’s network, applications and sensitive data.
Get mobile security and device management for your personal or corporate-issued mobile device, and mandate that all of your employees – or anyone for that matter who accesses your corporate network from a mobile device – load mobile security and device management on their mobile devices!
Protect yourself – and your company – from those things that go bump in the night…on your network!
