Companies often provide their employees with various tools they need to operate, but recently they are encouraging them to bring personal devices to work. BYOD is a mobile trend that is rapidly catching on in the workplace for many reasons. By allowing employees to access your data on personal devices, you create more flexibility in their operations which directly boosts their productivity.
While BYOD addresses employee’s need for flexibility, it comes with heightened security risks. The company provided devices would have necessary configurations to detect harmful activity, but that is highly unlikely for employee’s phones or tablets. Besides security concerns, this trend creates an additional need for managing multi-OS devices and sharing critical information on new platforms.
The risks of users bringing their own devices to work, for work, has opened up a whole new level of what should be accessible by mobile devices, and rules should be in place for an organization to manage this new aspect of a network. With the storm of new mobile devices available and the multitude of security and management threats, the time has come for someone in the organization to own and manage this part of their technology.
Enter The Mobile Strategist
Many companies across the globe have suffered for encouraging the trend without a strategy to cope with the dangers it brings. To avoid this, you need a person within your organization that fully understands the strengths and shortcomings of different devices in order to plan a foolproof strategy. Mobile strategists have an important role in the way all organizations benefit from such trends that have clearly changed how mobile technology is used in the workplace. Without a strategist, your company is an easy target for hackers who will attack your system through employee’s devices. The worst about this is that you might not even realize it till it’s too late to repair any damage.
Roles of a mobile strategist:
· Mobilizing legacy enterprise apps and determining the strategies for their delivery.
· Making all relevant technology choices as well as regulating use in the business setting.
· Build a roadmap that shows exactly how security can be ensured in the organization.
· They bring competitive edge by preventing leaks across mobile platforms.
The mobile strategist should help people understand that with the onset of BYOD, company information is at risk. This way they will take recommended measures to upgrade device security and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. A mobile strategist is needed in all organizations, but management needs to be careful about who they hire. You need an individual who can easily interact with employees across the board. One who is keen enough to identify loopholes and lay out concrete plans on how to work around them. This is the only way to ensure proper integration of mobile technology without causing unnecessary conflict in the workplace.
Businesses might be skeptical of this role in IT, but there is no hiding from the facts. It is not enough to control access as attackers can easily find their way around passwords. Modern viruses and malware don’t even need your passwords to infect your systems. They come disguised as apps that employees are likely to click on personal devices but because your organization’s systems have been accessed using them there is no hiding from their effects. Only a seasoned strategist can create a valid plan that will not only protect devices but also the people whose data is on them.
A good mobile security strategy needs to address the following areas:
· Device security is the first step to ensuring security for the entire system. All devices that employees bring to work must be secured before being used to access sensitive data.
· Next the strategy must include ways in which to ensure content viewed on mobile devices. This involves the creation of a safe environment where data can be accessed and shared.
· It would be a poor strategy if it didn’t describe exactly how to manage access to business systems. It is at this point where one must define clear ways to deal with data breaches.
All said and done those who decide to take up the role of mobile strategist should know that it is by no means an easy job. Replacing old with new technologies that can meet both the user’s needs and security protocol requirements will be the greatest challenge. You will certainly face some resistance as people struggle to adjust to the changes. Instead of trying to control how people use their own devices devise plans to control your sensitive data that is being accessed through them. This will prevent your role from appearing as invasive. With time things will flow better as people realize that you are there to protect all parties using cutting edge strategies.
CenterGrid.com
