According to Gartner, this year over half of all enterprise employers will require employees to supply their own device for work purposes (BYOD). But BYOD will increase risks and security is the top concern for BYOD.
Infrastructure dependent ……….
Traditionally companies use corporate perimeters bounded by firewalls to secure their environment. With the consumerisation of IT, those borders don’t exist anymore. Apps have to be accessible to anyone at any time using any device. This means where there used to be a defined security perimeter, the border is now defined by the identity and access management process itself.
The move to the cloud is unstoppable, companies are looking to move faster than ever. The issue is that many large corporates and government entities aren’t using a single public cloud instance, often relying on a mix of on-premise, public cloud, hybrid cloud and private cloud scenarios. Companies like Microsoft with its Azure platform, and Amazon, with its AWS platform, are doing a good job with basic identity and access management but the fact is that that although they can control access to their applications, they can’t always control access to the applications a company may have hosted in, or connected to, the cloud.
If you have an on -premise ERP application, for example, a cloud ID service may not provide identity and access management for that application, while third party applications can. For the most part this is costly and only the large organisations, who can afford their own cloud infrastructure are able to adjust.
TOKN supports back-end integration, app management and app build toenable effective manage data transfer.
Effective Data Management
CIOs have less control over mobile devices used in their organisation, which ultimately means they are more vulnerable to attacks. Using their own devices employees are downloading mobile apps and connecting to external Wi-Fi spots without always having the correct security protocols in place. According to a study conducted by HP, 97% of employee’s devices contained privacy issues, and 75% lacked adequate data encryption. This creates serious security concerns that can be exploited by hackers. This, coupled with the fact that your employees might not have anti-virus protection or have an up to date firewall present on their mobile devices, means they are more vulnerable to attacks.
To prevent viruses spreading it is important that there is a gatekeeper. TOKN’s Connect service performs this function by verifying that the data being transferred from the mobile device to your IT network is encrypted and permitted.
Separate work from play
One of the most obvious BYOD security challenges is coping with the storage of work and personal data on the same device. Ultimately there are going to be certain types of corporate data that will be transferred to the organisation and stored locally on the device, so consideration needs to be given to the topic of securing this data.
One of the biggest threats to mobile devices is malware that is installed unknowingly by the user, meaning malware could find its way onto the network.
TOKN’s secure client provides a secure delineation between work and play on the device
Remote control
The biggest risk in this area that IT departments fear is when employee’s devices are lost or stolen, or even who has what device and what app……According to an article in IT business edge, over half of security breaches occur when devices are stolen, it is therefore vital that companies are implementing encryption tactics to ensure that the device is secure against threats. A simple but effective way to ensure that employees secure their device is by prompting them to use even basic security protocols like using a device pin code.
Furthermore Employees who don’t keep their devices up to date are at further risk of being targeted by hackers. This includes mobile operating systems as well as install the apps
TOKN device control service includes the enforcement of IT security protocols like pin codes, and remote wiping capabilities so that IT Managers have the power to wipe the device as soon as possible without having to ask for the user’s permission.
Contact us to hear more about TOKN’s Digital Enterprise Mobility products and services