Bring Your Own Device And Identity Theft

Companies are increasingly relying on the practice of BYOD (bring your own device). Let’s look at the risks and methods of prevention.

More and more organizations now encourage their employees to use their own phones and tablets to access office email and data. It is a win-win situation for both the company and the employees. Employees don’t have to transfer data between their personal and official devices.

What’s more, since they will be using their own device, they can access corporate information whenever they want. Employers also gain from this arrangement. They don’t have to spend money on buying or maintaining mobile devices for their staff.

However, this practice of BYOD or Bringing your Own Device does pose some security risks. When employees access work information from their own devices, it can compromise the security of their corporate data network and lead to major problems like business ID theft. In fact, cybercrooks have been targeting BYOD for a while.

Employees using devices under a Bring Your Own Device policy can make themselves vulnerable to cyber-attack in many different ways. Using unsecured Wi-Fi networks is one of them. Leaving your mobile devices unattended is another problem. Downloading apps from sources you do not trust can also make you vulnerable. Other risky employee behaviors include visiting unverified websites and disregarding cyber security protocols.

If you allow your employees to use their own phones and laptops to access corporate information, you must consider securing your network with AirWatch’s mobile security services.

AirWatch provides the following ways for identity theft prevention.

1. Containerization (Workspace)

This process ensures the complete separation of official and personal information on a mobile device. This makes work resources secure while at the same time ensuring employee privacy.

AirWatch’s unique approach to containerization allows companies to standardize enterprise security and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategies across cellular devices.

2. Mobile Security

Securing your applications and content on mobile devices is of paramount importance in the management of mobile security systems. The AirWatch Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) makes sure that corporate information is secure by protecting every element in your network including users, applications, devices, content, email, and data.

3. Mobile Device Management

Smart phones and identity theft have become quite a problem these days. AirWatch Mobile Device Management (MDM) allows organizations using a Bring Own Device Policy to effectively deal with these problems. It provides a simple and efficient solution to manage all devices associated with your network from a central admin console. You can enroll new devices quickly, configure them, and also update them over the air. What’s more, you can add and manage devices running various operating systems including Android, BlackBerry, Apple iOS, Mac OS, and Windows Mobile etc.

4. Mobile Application Management

With AirWatch MAM (Mobile Application Management), you can acquire, distribute, secure and track mobile applications from one console. You can also manage public and internal apps across devices owned by your organization and employees.

AirWatch MAM solutions are ideal for organizations supporting BYOD programs. MAM can be deployed with MDM. It can also be deployed as a stand-alone solution. It allows network administrators to formulate privacy policies that do not access personal data. Employees are also informed about the information that administrators can access.

5. Mobile Content Management

AirWatch MCM (Mobile Content Management) allows organizations to distribute and access documents with AirWatch Secure Content Locker (SCL). MCM allows you to save sensitive data in a corporate container. Employees can access this data from a central point.

6. Mobile Email Management

If employees access work email from their own devices, securing your official email infrastructure is extremely important. AirWatch allows you to encrypt important data and prevent data loss. Administrators can also control which devices have access to email. AirWatch supports native email clients, enterprise services, cloud-based clients, and containers.

7. Mobile Browsing Management

Employees using devices under a Bring Your Own Device policy often access websites that are not necessary to your business. These websites could contain malware that might threaten the security of your network. AirWatchBrowser is a safe browsing solution. It allows organizations to configure settings that meet their unique business needs. And administrators can enforce secure browsing practices from the AirWatch console.

8. Laptop Management

The AirWatch Laptop Management solution allows you to manage laptops running Windows and Mac OS along with your phones and tablets.

9. Multi-user Management

Mobile devices have revolutionized the way businesses operate. Since deploying a device to each and every employee can be quite costly, many organizations now allow multiple users to share devices. AirWatch Multi-user Management addresses the challenges associated with the management of shared devices. It meets the security standards for shared devices while at the same time ensuring that users get the personalized experience they need.

Bottom line

If you want to opt for BYOD in your organization, you need to keep a tight security measures to control the risks. Even the slightest vulnerability can lead to data theft. It’s now time to tighten up the lax oversight of mobile data assets. Solutions like AirWatch can make sure that your corporate data is safe from external factors.