Digital Transformation Today

Secure Your Digital Workplace With Mobile Device Training

One of the big challenges with using bring-your-own-device (BYOD) in the digital workplace is that it’s not an entirely controlled environment. In this context, how do you make sure that your organization is prepared to address document and content security concerns?

The stakes might be higher than you realize. According to research by Gartner, unmanaged BYOD “can lead to loss of control, impact your network availability and cause data loss.” Device theft, data leaks and unsecured networks all expose your organization to serious risks.

In this environment, securing your users’ personal devices for use in the digital workplace starts with setting BYOD policies and employing technologies like mobile device management (MDM) and information rights management (IRM). But even if you’re able to lock and wipe devices and enforce certain policies, you can’t control everything from a single point. That’s why it’s important in a BYOD setting to also educate people on how to maintain, insure and protect their devices.

It would be a mistake to assume that your employees are going to take these precautions on their own. According to a recent survey by Consumer Reports, approximately one-third of U.S. smartphone owners fail to take even the most basic measures to protect their phones and the data stored on them.

In addition to developing security policies and using software like MDM, training is an important element for any successful BYOD strategy. Overall, it’s a good idea to train users on how to access corporate resources and maintain their devices.

Effective training includes physical security tips as well as guidance on staying safe when using Wi-Fi. While you could make a policy that no one is allowed to connect to unsecured Wi-Fi and use MDM to put this restriction in place, it makes sense to also cover these rules in the training. When a person is traveling, it’s easy to overlook guidelines and connect to unsecured Wi-Fi when trying to complete some work. The intentions might be good, but it could lead to serious security issues.

BYOD training should also address what access the company has to the personal data on a user’s device. While BYOD has benefits as well as risks from the corporation’s standpoint, it also presents risks from an employee perspective, such as the fear that the corporation would gain access to personal data or monitor a person’s use of the device.

The way to overcome those fears is through proper training and communication that builds trust and clearly states how the company respects individual privacy in the digital workplace. It’s important to be able to explain in straightforward terms what happens when a person enrolls a device into the corporate network, and how MDM protocols work to create compartments of content.

If — or rather, when — an employee’s mobile device is lost or stolen, your company should be able to control what happens to the business data stored on it and use remote access to force the deletion of specific information. But for your security measures to be successful, you also need to train employees so that they know how to maintain their devices and report problems when they arise.

To learn more about secure business information management for mobile devices, download our free e-book, “Ensuring Document Security In A BYOD Workplace.”

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