Mobile devices have become common components of modern workplaces. Ensuring that these ubiquitous devices are secure and properly managed is essential to protecting sensitive company data and ensuring smooth business operations.
Effective mobile security requires a combination of technical controls, employee training, and continuous monitoring to detect and mitigate potential risks. In addition to these foundational steps, organizations should establish clear usage policies to define how employees can access and store corporate data on their mobile devices.
In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of using mobile devices in the workplace and highlight how this can be done in a safe and secure way.
By adopting a comprehensive mobile security approach, businesses can enhance productivity, while ensuring data integrity, compliance, and protection against evolving cyber threats.
Reasons To Use Mobile Devices In The Workplace
We all know how useful mobile devices are in day to day workflows. They allow us to access and respond to emails (or other communications) whilst away from our desk. They even help to facilitate working from home, allowing employees to find flexible solutions to balance work and other responsibilities. They act as an authentication factor, allowing organizations to implement robust security policies.
Mobile technology also enables real-time collaboration, allowing teams to share documents, attend virtual meetings, and respond to business needs without being tied to a desk. When you combine this with secure authentication measures and MDM solutions, mobile devices can offer a convenient, yet secure, way to enhance workplace efficiency and flexibility. Organizations can choose to either provide their own corporate-owned devices to employees or opt for a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach.
A properly configured MDM policy will allow organizations greater visibility and control over:
- Ensuring devices are accessed by authorized users and running authorized applications
- Minimizing risk of cyber threats such as malware, phishing, and data leaks
- Keep track of how many devices are in circulation, who each device is assigned to, and where devices are physically located
- Enforcing company security policies
Corporate-Owned Devices
By providing employees with corporate-owned devices, organizations have complete control over the devices in their fleet. This means that they have the power to choose exactly which operating systems, models, and applications they’d like to support. This makes management more efficient and cohesive as there are not periods where some devices are updated and others are still waiting for an update.
With every employee’s device running on the same environment, troubleshooting efforts are made significantly easier for IT teams. A standardized environment also makes maintenance and security management more efficient. This means that all devices operate on the same operating system, software versions, and security configurations, reducing compatibility issues and inconsistencies.
This uniformity and consistency allow IT teams to quickly diagnose and resolve technical problems, leading to minimized downtime and better productivity.
Alongside this opportunity is a greater responsibility on the part of the organization. They are responsible for the hardware, as well as the software and updates. When rolled across a whole organization, this can get expensive quickly. However, this also eliminates the need to interact with end users’ personal devices at all.
BYOD
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a policy that allows employees to use their personal mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, for work purposes within an organization.
Allowing employees to bring their own mobile devices can be a more affordable option as it means that the organization would not be responsible for providing and paying for the hardware. Using their own familiar devices also means that employees won’t have to adjust to unfamiliar tech and can instead feel comfortable navigating an environment they are already accustomed to, so productivity is not hindered.
However, BYOD policies can also introduce security risks, such as data breaches, unauthorized access, and malware infections, since personal devices may not always comply with corporate security policies. Another downside of this arrangement is that if personal devices are lost, stolen or damaged employees may not be in a position to replace the device right away, which can lead to a halt in their productivity.
There are also increased security risks if the devices end up in the wrong hands. This approach also requires separating work use and personal use on one device to maintain employees’ privacy. However, when properly managed, BYOD can enhance productivity, support remote work, and improve employee satisfaction, while maintaining security and compliance.
Best Practices For Securing And Managing Mobile Devices
Following best practices allows businesses to enhance security, while ensuring employees can work efficiently, regardless of their location. Some best practices for securing and managing mobile devices include:
- Implement a plan to apply patches as needed and keep systems up to date.
- Ensure that information on which devices are in circulation and assigned to each user is available and searchable.
- Reporting can also be helpful for making sure that compliance requirements are met.
- If a user’s work device is ever lost or stolen, organization admins should be able to remotely lock or wipe the device.
- User devices should be provisioned with the correct applications and levels of access that are needed for their role. This helps to both make onboarding as smooth as possible and enforce the principle of least privilege.
- Require MFA for users to access company resources; this makes it more difficult for unauthorized users to get a hold of these items.
Effectively securing and managing mobile devices requires a combination of technical safeguards, employee training, and proactive monitoring to prevent cyber threats. Implementing safeguards such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), encryption, Mobile Device Management (MDM), and strict access controls can help to minimize the risk of security incidents. Investing in the education of your employees is another good way to ensure they can support and adhere to security best practices. By prioritizing mobile security, businesses can protect their data, maintain compliance, and enable a productive and secure mobile workforce.
For more information on Mobile Device Management, Expert Insights have written up a host of related articles:
- The Top Mobile Device Management (MDM) Solutions
- Mobile Device Management (MDM) Buyers’ Guide
- The Top Enterprise Mobility Management Software
- Stats And Trends For Mobile Device Management (MDM)
- What Problems Does Mobile Device Management (MDM) Solve? Pros and Cons Explained
