According to a recent survey, the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass 5 billion in 2019. That’s an incredible number of people using mobile phones. Truly, when we talk about a digital connected age, there’s no doubt that it’s that small handheld device we carry around in our pockets that has been at the forefront of this information revolution.
Of course, with the proliferation of mobile devices, an obvious risk has risen: cybersecurity. The arrival of the mobile phone means that the lines between work and home have often been blurred. Workers use their mobile phones to conduct a lot of work-related activities, whether accessing important documents, sending emails or using productivity related apps.
All this is compounded by the fact that BYOD has become a popular trend for enterprises. BYOD, which stands for Bring Your Own Devices, is a policy through which employees are allowed to use their own personal devices for work-related matters. While that helps enterprises save device costs and helps to improve productivity, it also increases the risk factor significantly. While enterprises often put in strict measures to keep their enterprise networks safe and secure, BYOD poses a threat as it is often difficult to configure security frameworks to suit particular devices
Some of the major security risks that have risen on mobile are:
- Lack of physical security: Desktops cannot be moved easily and laptops can be locked to a stationary structure but handheld devices, such as smartphone can be easily stolen. The thief also gets open access to the data on the device and to the enterprise through enterprise applications installed on mobile.
- Untrusted networks: While travelling, users routinely connect the devices to untrustworthy networks (Wi-Fi). It could be at cafes, restaurants, clubs, and other social places. These networks are not secure and extremely prone to hacking.
- Untrusted applications: Games, social media apps, and many other apps read the data from the device and upload it to their servers. This is a threat to corporate data stored on mobiles. Personal apps on devices are usually one of the biggest threats for data theft.
- Interaction with other systems: Users connect mobile devices to their personal laptops and other desktops to transfer music, videos etc. These computers pose security danger for the enterprise data saved on the handheld.
- Untrusted mobile devices: Most personal devices are untrustworthy. They may not be upgraded to latest OS and patches are also not frequently updated thus leaving the device insecure. Employees tend to avoid upgrading immediately to save on data streaming and may also try to jailbreak the device to play and experiment with it. In case of organizations supporting BYOD, this increases the threat.
To ensure that organizations keep their data secure, it is imperative that they secure their company’s mobile devices by implementing mobile devices management solution. Network administrators can consider Seqrite’s Mobile Device Management solution, a simple and powerful platform to manage and monitor Android mobile devices within the enterprise. Devices are protected from malicious threats, thanks to benefits such as:
- Easily-accessible cloud-based device management solution
- Complete IT visibility of all the mobile devices connected within the enterprise
- Flexible deployment of policies with robust anti-theft features
- Comprehensive app control to regulate all the apps that devices can and cannot install
As an IT security partner for your business, Seqrite provides comprehensive security from advanced cyber threats. To know more
