Securing Mobile Devices on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

With a myriad of mobile devices being used on a variety of new platforms (Android, Windows 8, iOS 6, etc.) - IT Professionals are beginning to raise concerns on how to manage and secure these devices. With more of the device processing occurring outside the company, these concerns are critical. What if an employee handed their company phone to another employee? In today’s environment, this second employee could take advantage of the situation and use the phone for non-approved activities. This could create significant employment issues for the first employee. On another level, there’s the potential threat from mobile malware that’s becoming more prevalent.

Some businesses are seeing Employees bringing their own Droids, iPhones, iPads, and other Tablets to work and using them for personal and business purposes. While this may generate the perception that it’s e great for productivity, the invasion of personal smartphones and tablets in the workplace can cause a significant risk to your organization's security. Without having a proper strategy you could be at risk

When employees are given carte blanche on the corporate network with their mobile devices (installing Apps and use of Cloud storage), there is a significant potential for corporate data loss. Any time a phone is lost, stolen, or even simply sold or exchanged, the potential for compromising of data may occur. This can be prevented by implementing encryption, password restriction, and remote wipe and lock thru a Mail Server.



It’s vital for IT Professional to secure access to corporate data. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or personal and corporate use can be managed by using third party software (listed below) to secure data in your wireless phone and company. Investing in a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution that controls which devices can access specific applications on your network is a smart decision. By taking precautionary steps, files are secured with the highest encryption for file sharing.

On July 10, 2013, I was given an opportunity to attend an IT Security Seminar and have met some of these top MDM Vendors.

• AirWatch
• BoxTone
• Eset Mobile Security
• Exitor
• FancyFon
• McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management
• Mobile Active Defense
• Symantec Mobile Management
• Trend Micro Mobile Security

Why secure BYOD’s? It’s not the devices that are causing lots of the problems. The challenge is employees wanting to use their own device for both personal and professional business. This creates a host of security issues, as mentioned earlier, and the reason to implement controls and security measures.

 

[Corrine]

A collection of articles and information from Microsoft on BYOD for IT Professionals:

• Managing Windows 8 Devices in a Bring Your Own Device World
• Trust in Computing Survey, Part 1: Consumerization of IT Goes Mainstream
• How to Embrace BYOD: Guidance for Enterprises
• Making Windows Phone an even better choice for business

 

[satrow]

Is there one for securing your device against complete remote erasure by your (ex-)employer?

 

[Corrine]

No idea, but I put the question out on Twitter. Maybe someone will have an answer.

 

[2xg]

Hi,

Not that I know of.....if you decide to use a personal phone and setup work-email in your Smart phone and your Exchange Server supports to remote wipe your phone (Windows, Droids, iPhone, iPads, etc...), everything will be wiped out. This procedure will only take a couple of seconds by your Exch Server Admin to either perform this procedure thru Exch Server Console or Outlook Web App and you can actually see in your phone if you look closely what's going on. You'll have to initially setup your Smart phone from scratch. We do not allow any personal phones or Tablets synced to our Mail Server at all per company policy and I'm a very strict Admin. :r1:

Edit:
In addition..... if your phone like my Windows 8 phone has Backup Assistant App, you may retrieve some of your original settings including Apps installed, but note that you'll have to re-enter the passwords for all your Public and Work email accounts and with your work email, another hassle....please check this out:

To sync with the server, you must remove this mobile phone from the list of mobile phones in Outlook Web App. Otherwise, for security purposes, your device will continue wiping data if you try to sync again.

Hope this helps.