Data Protection and Bring Your Own Device to Work

BYOD refers to a firm's policy of allowing employees to use their own personal phones, tablets and laptops for all their work applications.This is a pretty common policy, and it has many benefits, but it brings along risks. How are you addressing these risks?

Here are some of the issues raised by BYOD

A lost device - If you issue company phones, you have the ability to remotely wipe the unit clean if it is lost or stolen. With employee's personal devices, do you still have that ability. If not, your data is at risk.
Software updates - Is the employee responsible for updating all the software and virus protection programs on their own devices? If that responsibility transfers to them, you are at the mercy of their willingness to keep track of such tedious tasks. If you accept responsibility for it, do you have the in-house staff to handle all the extra work?
Back ups - with data being entered on many different devices, something must be done to ensure back up procedures are routinely followed.

In short, BYOD is probably an unavoidable approach to device management. It is unrealistic to expect people to carry around 2 different phones or tablets 24/7. But BYOD means extra work for the in-house staff of a small business. To learn more about these risks and a more affordable, comprehensive approach to BYOD Management, see our e-guide "Now you see it, There IT...Stays".

Comments

Leave virus protection to your MSP Doctor

Leave virus protection to your MSP Doctor Cyberattacks on individuals and businesses for nasty purposes is nothing new. Stealing data, disrupting business, national activities, and just causing general mayhem has been going on for as long as there has been a digital world to attack. Ransomware, however, seems to stand out as a particularly unique and especially troublesome form of crime. For one thing, once an attack has happened, there is likely nothing to do to retrieve your data until you have given in to the demands of the criminals. As a small- to medium- sized business owner, you should never just rely on off-the shelf virus protection programs as the sole tool to protect your organization against cyber crime. In all cases you should rely on an IT professional to look at every aspect of your IT infrastructure to ensure that everything possible is being done to protect your data. Beyond that, ransomware attacks are a particularly troublesome form of crime that requires special...

Stars of the show: Cloud and VOIP

Stars of the show: Cloud and VOIP Despite annoying challenges presented by the abrupt shift to the WFH model thanks to the pandemic, there were some tech heroes that saved the day. These two made WFH possible. The cloud The cloud is that platform whereby you outsource your data storage as well as many of your applications. With the cloud, your data and software applications are no longer physically located in a specific geographic location. Therefore, access is no longer tethered to a user's physical location. The cloud was the biggest game changer during the pandemic because it allowed businesses to get anytime, anywhere access to their data as well as critical applications. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that if it weren’t for the cloud, a lot of businesses wouldn’t have been able to survive the pandemic at all. VoIP Along with the cloud, VOIP proved to be one of the most critical elements when it came to business continuity during this pandemic. It revolutionized business commu...

WFH means more vulnerability to cybercrime

WFH means more vulnerability to cybercrime. Here are some methods to stay safe WFH opens up whole new horizons in terms of flexibility, productivity, and cost savings. But, it also opens your business up a little more to cybercriminals, as you can’t have a hands-on approach to cybersecurity, especially if your employees are using their own devices for work. This blog discusses some mechanisms that you can use to mitigate the risks of becoming a victim of cybercrime in the WFH setup. Multi-factor authentication Instead of using a single password for data access, multi-factor authentication adds more layers to security. If WFH has your employees accessing their work computers remotely, then you simply cannot skip multifactor authentication. Multi-factor authentication works by confirming the identity of the user across 3 areas What they know: Examples include asking for User IDs, passwords, answers to ‘secret questions’, verification of their date of birth, etc. What they have: This incl...

Search This Blog