Mobile working can offer great benefits to businesses, but it can also lead to increased risk exposure, it has been suggested.
Koby Amedume, Europe, Middle East and Africa marketing director at Kaseya, said the ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) phenomenon “has taken the world by storm”, and it is difficult for employers to overlook the potential of such schemes.
“Incredibly powerful mobile devices from a number of manufacturers are increasingly being used within enterprises to access work-related data and applications – from email to presentations,” he noted.
But while the modern organisation must embrace this new, mobile-centric way of working and enable its workforce to use the devices it wants, he said firms need to keep data security under control.
“Accurately identifying which devices are being used and where they are located is a huge and time-consuming challenge for any IT team,” Mr Amedume contended.
“Gaining insight into what data those devices are accessing and, critically, how secure it is on distributed mobile devices is also complex. If handled incorrectly, haphazard and inconsistent mobile device management ensues, as well as greater exposure to security risks.”
He said that any business considering a BYOD scheme must recognise that only with the right solutions, policies and guidance in place, can corporate data and network access be managed and monitored correctly.
“[This is] a strategy that is most efficiently achieved via a comprehensive IT management solution or ‘single pane of glass’ approach which will ensure that a precedent is set for BYOD’s evolution in the enterprise,” the expert claimed.
