One of the latest tech trends to sweep through workplaces large and small is 'bring your own device' or BYOD policies. These are popular for a number of reasons. Empowering employees to work how they want over the devices they want is good for morale; it's far less expensive than buying new technologies for every new employee; and it ensures that workers have the tools they need whether they are in the office or at home, which is especially helpful for traveling or remote employees.
Then again, there are some downsides to BYOD that you need to understand. Below are a few of the problems BYOD introduces to your business environment and what you can do to prevent a cyberattack. In the unfortunate event of data breach, a cybersecurity policy from CyberPolicy can safeguard your organization from the crippling financial damages a data breach can cause.
It's All About Risk Management
It's no secret that bringing personal devices into the office opens a world of security risks. It could be as simple as leaving your laptop or smart phone at the coffee shop, only to have it be picked up by a nefarious actor; or arriving to work with a bogus app downloaded to your tablet that spreads to the company network.
Public Wi-Fi is another vulnerability of the BYOD and 'work from anywhere' models. That's because crafty cyber crooks can see information sent and received by your computer or mobile device. To make matters worse, man in the middle attacks are phony Wi-Fi hotspots made to look like legitimate free Wi-Fi networks. One click, and everything you do online can be seen by the hacker. In fact, cybersecurity policy experts recommend that you avoid using corporate email, online banking or even engaging in ecommerce purchases while on free public Wi-Fi.
And therein lies the problem. BYOD policies offer very limited visibility to IT departments, the very teams designed to defend us from digital incursion.
Of course, no one is going to put the genie back in the bottle. BYOD is simply too important to workers and too valuable to employers to turn back now. Instead, businesses would be smart to implement a few cybersecurity policies to block cyberattacks before they happen and minimize the risk if they do. Here are a few examples to get you started:
Follow these steps all you'll greatly reduce your chances of becoming a victim of a cybercrime. Visit CyberPolicy to get your free quote today!