Secure Your Company’s Data: Enterprise Mobile Security

When a company decides to embrace going mobile, they find that there’s a whole new universe of security considerations to tackle. But the truth of the matter is, going mobile, at least to a certain extent, just isn’t optional anymore. Even those companies which can avoid it for now won’t be able to for much longer. There’s just no way to justify missing out on the efficiency or effectiveness of allowing employees to work while mobile.

BYOD (bring your own device) environments are becoming as common as companies that allow their employees to work remotely. Between Smartphone’s and tablets, millions of employees are already equipped with powerful devices that can up their productivity while providing them near-constant connection. However, the inclusion of personal devices into an enterprise system especially mobile devices can leave CEOs worried about data security.

They don’t have to be, however. Mobile security can be just as robust as any other type of IT security solution, even in a BYOD environment. The key is choosing the right security solution and deploying it correctly. One important aspect of this is choosing a security solution that adequately controls what the user can do with the company’s data. For example, can they view files, or can they download them? If they can download them, is the file stored in a secure location? If it is, can it be copied and pasted elsewhere? Some solutions only allow the user to look at the data on their screen, but it won’t persist on the device after they’ve logged out. This may not be a viable option for some organizations, but when it is it’s a very tidy way to handle data security.

These are all important questions to ask, because ultimately, the organization can only exercise complete control over their own applications and their own data. Certainly there are policies and methods which can be used to manage security by controlling users’ devices, but only to a point. First of all, users are not going to embrace BYOD if they’re not allowed to use the texting apps they like, play the games they want to play, or download the music they want to listen to. Part of making BYOD work includes employee cooperation, and the organization is unlikely to get it by exerting too much control over employees’ personal devices. Another one of the advantages gained by practicing good data protection is the ability to remove pertinent information from the user’s phone simply by removing the company applications. If good data protection isn’t provided, it can become necessary to wipe the user’s entire phone. If it is, the company and the user must deal with backing up information.

In some cases, a more secure version of the same app is available, too. For example, some popular email applications offer a more secure version specifically for enterprise mobile security. Some also offer secure browsers. There’s no reason not to request that these applications be upgraded to their more secure counterparts.