How to Avoid Common BYOD Pitfalls at Work?

Many businesses now adhere to the "bring your own device" (BYOD) policy, which states that employees are allowed to bring and make use of their own personal electronic devices for work-related reasons. Businesses that allow their workers to bring their own electronic devices to the office can save money since they do not have to provide their employees with mobile phones, computers, or tablets of their own.

According to a survey that was published on Insight, the market for bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies is anticipated to reach more than $360 billion by the year 2022.

The implementation of regulations that allow employees to bring their own computing devices to work not only results in cost savings but also in an increase in productivity since it enables employees to utilize the equipment with which they are already familiar.

If the following strategies are implemented, they have the potential to make everyone's work experience more positive, which, in turn, will lead to higher levels of productivity.

Implement a Secure Passcode Policy

Do you find it odd that weak or stolen passwords were the cause of 63 percent of all reported data breaches in 2016? The issue of passwords being captured carelessly is made worse by the fact that many individuals don't put any consideration into the process of coming up with a secure password for their accounts.

If your firm plans to let employees bring their own devices to work, you absolutely need to have a strong password policy. It is necessary to have a policy that discourages both forgetting passwords and using ones that are not very secure (for example, "Password" is a terrible password). Imagine there is a regulation that says passwords need to have a certain minimum length and that they also need to include both uppercase and lowercase letters, in addition to a number, somewhere in the rules. In addition, you have the choice to submit a request for a personalized avatar.

Passwords that are simply a few characters long are especially susceptible to being cracked because they frequently represent the concept of the firm. To illustrate, a car dealership, for example, would avoid using any passwords related to automobiles for data security reasons. Passwords such as that are just too easy to crack.

E-mail Profile Management

Many companies adhere to making e-mail accounts available to their employees as a matter of etiquette, but what occurs if an employee resigns or is terminated? Is there any possibility that this may be paid for by my insurance? Is there a swift termination of their account? If the account is not deactivated, calamity might occur, especially if the employee has been taking advantage of regulations allowing them to bring their own devices to work. After all, even if they are no longer working for you, the former employee has continued access to the information maintained by the firm.

Even if they do not want to cause harm to your company in any way, a former worker may not be as worried about the safety of your company as you would like them to be. Issues that were previously considered to be "their concern" since they are no longer employed by you are no longer considered to be such. An inactive e-mail account is a potentially dangerous loose end that might come back to haunt you.

Allow Diversity While Also Maintaining Baselines

Because there is such a vast selection of brands and kinds of devices to choose from, it is optional for users to utilize the same configuration. Additionally, only some people are using the most recent version of the program or app, and the average age of people's gadgets varies widely from person to person. Rapid advances in technical capability have the potential to call into question long-established worldviews. Do you recall a time when Blackberries represented the height of technological advancement?

People in the workforce tend to fall into one of two categories: those who are eager to get the newest and most advanced electronics as soon as they are released, and others who are more reluctant to change and whose electronics employ technology that is, by today's standards, many decades old.

Because of this, it is wise to accommodate deviations within reason while still setting fundamental norms and rules. It would be absurd to presume that everyone will be utilizing a smartphone that is built on Android. However, compatibility problems may occur if an employee is using a smartphone that is more than a decade old and operates on dated software. In this case, the employee's device may not be compatible with newer versions of the program. Access to BYOD should be limited to employees who are resistant to change until such time as they have implemented the required adjustments. Up until then, it is entirely up to them whether or not they are prepared to put up with the inconvenience of not having an outlet nearby.

Set the Limits of Employee Privacy

When a person's personal and professional life begins to blend together, they open themselves up to a host of issues. After all, the personal device that the employee brings to work is likely to include personal information on it, such as pictures, movies, bookmarks, and account details that have nothing to do with the work that they do.

Before introducing bring your own device (BYOD), a firm should first develop a thorough privacy policy that explains what the organization may and cannot do to/with the employee's own device. Is it possible for there to be any applications that are "banned"? What exactly is going to be observed here? What are the repercussions of disobeying these guidelines?

Last but not least, there's the issue of keeping track of usage. The call, text, data, and roaming consumption of an employee's mobile device should be closely monitored by any organization that is worth it's salt. There must be some degree of trust in the workplace, but at the same time, businesses ought to steer clear of Orwellian levels of surveillance. This tricky balancing act needs to be completed, and after that's done, the results need to be relayed to the workforce through the policies that have been formed.

The extent to which a business may remotely erase information from a BYOD device if, for example, the device has been lost or stolen is a susceptible question when it comes to the wider problem of privacy. A firm has the legal right to gain access to a lost device and remove confidential information that might endanger the company somehow. BYOD requires a certain amount of give and take on everyone's side, which may be unsettling for some people because it requires them to give up so much control over their own devices.

Before permitting employees to bring their devices to work, companies should develop a policy to govern the practice. It is unacceptable for a company to make up its policies as they go along.

Conclusion

Like workplace security, BYOD security necessitates a multi-pronged strategy to counteract threats while limiting interference with workers' freedom to use their own devices for personal matters. The main features necessary to guarantee business security in the BYOD scenario are combined in context-aware security solutions that give control over user access, apps, network connectivity, and devices in addition to encryption capabilities. Companies that implement these solutions successfully reduce the security risks that have plagued businesses that have adopted BYOD in the past, allowing them to take full advantage of the advantages of BYOD, such as increased employee productivity and satisfaction as a result of a better work-life balance.