For the highly connected world we live in, if you are asked whether employees in your organization carry their personal device to work, often, the answer is no. The trending concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is instrumental in boosting employee efficiency while keeping the corporate equipment purchases overhead on the lower side.
As per a report, “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) & Enterprise Mobility Market,” by research and consulting firm, MarketsandMarkets, BYOD and enterprise mobility market will cross $284 billion mark by 2019 at a CAGR of 25.2% between 2013 and 2019. The size of BYOD market in the report is a summation of the market size of software, devices and security.
Business in the times to come will be conducted on the go and that is great news. But in hindsight, there are some disturbing facts regarding the topic.
- Roughly 1 million malicious Android apps will be released for download this year alone, and that is not counting applications for other operating systems. – Infonetics Research September 2013
- Roughly 95 percent of stolen data in 2011, as well as 69 percent of breaches, were caused by malware that most likely entered the infrastructure through malicious apps. – News Provider
- 50% respondents said that they have to contend with more than 25 malware attacks each month. – Warner Study
With such numbers and data substantiating the BYOD trend, the battle for whether you pave way for BYOD Vs Mobile Identity and Access Management will be on. Safeguarding Mobile Access and ensuring Mobile Security in current scenario is the way forward. Organizations therefore have no escape than to bow to the trend and strategize accordingly. At the outset, all it requires is safeguarding Mobile Access, but a lot goes in to the making of a strong, unbreakable mobile infrastructure.
Here we have listed the three crucial ingredients that go in the making of a strong Mobile Device Management. It includes components of Mobile Access Management and Identity Management that ensures achieving optimal mobile security in current scenario.
- A Tactical Focus: Focus on implementing the necessary controls to ensure that an organization’s data and network is secured. It is to bring a balance between maintaining employee privacy and governance for business. Usage guidelines should be clearly communicated to the employees, and the best is to have them listed. Being more specific with details of blacklist or whitelist applications and devices help in communicating the BYOD protocol better to employees. Best is to create an organization’s very own app store.
- The Tool Kit: BYOD incorporates not just Identity Management, but management of dual identities in a device. Enterprises need to arm themselves with essential tools to sustain information governance. Users on the other hand should be able to easily navigate from a personal to a corporate identity. It begins right at the strategy stage where multi-faceted authentication capabilities are to be incorporated in the security architecture, especially when it comes to accessing sensitive and critical data.
- Tracking Activities: Given the dynamism of the corporate world, keeping a watch is always the best bet. Not that you have to be on it, but going back to employee access history, identifying loopholes in the system and bringing them in line with current or foreseen trends is imperative. Even the best Identity Management System may not be braced with what may come up in future, so the best approach to be fool proof is to track it.
Ensuring identity safeguard is a corporate responsibility to protect oneself from the threats as well as achieve optimal business performance. We, at Avancer, have hands on experience in bringing companies to top gear with a comprehensive value for money mobile device and access management plan. Stay tuned for our next post regarding Mobile Access Management.
