Dubai:The bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon has swept its way through the enterprise. In today’s interconnected and extremely mobile world, employees want to be able to work on their own device, not the PC the organisation gives to them.
BYOD is a practice of employees bringing personal devices to their workplace, with smartphones and tablets outpacing the sales of laptops globally. The new trend results in innovation and cost-savings but also creates security challenges,
However, that PC is compatible with the organisation’s network, whilst allowing employees to bring their own device can open up a plethora of network challenges.
In a telephone interview with Gulf News, Florian Malecki, EMEA Product Marketing Director at Dell SonicWALL, talks about the challenges and opportunities of embracing the BYOD concept.
Gulf News: What are the main challenges to the network that BYOD brings?
Florian Malecki: One of the main challenges that BYOD brings to the network is; issues surrounding technical support, employees’ compensation, company usage policies, legal implication, data protection, application management such as what apps are acceptable and what apps are not. A challenge for organisations is; lost devices, the question of personal and professional use of the device as well as establishing data ownership and the protection of intellectual property.
Gulf News: How can the IT team overcome these challenges to allow the organisation to embrace BYOD?
Florian Malecki: Enterprises need to be prepared to allow employees to use their devices. Employees want to use their own laptop, tablet or smartphone, so companies and IT managers have to accommodate all these users’ needs. What organisations can do to sidestep the problem is to distribute tablets and smartphones for their employees.
Firstly, organisations can get a better price because they buy in bulk and secondly it makes sense from an IT security point of view, because that tablet or smartphone will become a managed device. IT will be able to install security solutions onto the device and manage it to make sure that it has the latest patch and antivirus solutions. If it allows BYOD, there are many things that it can do, including defining a user profiles and needs, understanding the different user needs.
The best way to implement is to put together an official company BYOD policy that would need to be signed up buy HR and employees. Choose to support a limited operating systems – iOS, Android or Windows 8 for example.
What are the network limitations of an employee using their own device, as opposed to one provided by the organisation?
From a security perspective, tablets and smartphones are vehicles for information flow and so users’ may inadvertently or sometimes may even intentionally relay malware into the secure network. Employees using their own devices could cause the network to be vulnerable. But nevertheless IT managers must at all times be able to guarantee bandwidth to critical applications while limiting undesired or dangerous traffic. It also depends whether the user connects remotely or from the LAN with his own device. A user using his own device in the office might only be authorised to browse the internet via wireless or wired and that is it.
What security issues does the network face when employees bring their own device to work?
Data and applications security is the number one concern when employees bring their device to work and use it to connect to a company’s network.
Personal devices can be risky because it can download/store/forward sensitive information and has access to corporate networks, systems and data. Areas of risk include; data loss, a lost mobile device, data leakage such as unauthorised data access and downloads and unauthorized network access.
How can the IT team ensure the network is secure against these issues?
A good way to start BYOD and try to minimise risks is by using an Secure Sockets Layer virtual private network (SSL VPN) gateway. It is a form of VPN that can be used with a standard internet browser. The great thing about this is that one is able to identify the user and the user profile as well as identifying the device and setting up a profile for the device. By deploying new security technology that provides 360-degree insight into who and what is accessing a network — on a massive, real-time scale — IT managers can avoid data and access anarchy. Instead, the smart network administrators can allow their businesses to assess threats, react immediately and make access decisions based on vulnerability. To be truly effective, security must not only provide protection at the firewall, but also control the application at the device level and block any threats coming from that pipe. There should be strong authentication, establish a reverse web proxy and scan all traffic through a next-generation firewall.
