It’s no secret that Generation Y has entered the workforce with great determination. The demand for flexible working schedules and locations has increased and a shift from employees using company own devices to individually owned devices has also greatly increased. Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has its benefits, but it also can prevent a new cyber security challenges for big companies that wish to keep certain information encoded and a secret. Whenever personal devices interface with corporate data, you run the risk of data loss and data breaches, so with that in mind if you are a company that is interested in BYOD security, there are three threats that you, as an employer, should know about to ensure that you get the coverage necessary.
Unprotected Devices
If your company has employees that use phones, tablets, or laptops without good protection, all of these devices are easily susceptible to cyber-attacks. Something as simple as ignoring a software update can leave your data at great risk. The company’s it department and its employees should be working together in order to keep their personal devices secure using different kinds of encoded firewalls, and keeping up with the importance of updating their devices at all times.
Negligent Employees
Negligent employee seems to be one of the most significant issues with BYOD. Just one of your employees has to fall for a phishing scam or visit the wrong website to expose all of your company’s information. In order to combat this, education is key to minimizing these types of threats.
Insecure Public Wi-Fi
Connecting to public Wi-Fi networks also puts your corporate information and employees at risk of man-in-the-middle attacks and other threats. Some businesses do well by having secure access points in order to keep guest information safe. Hotels, coffee shops, and other residents often only have and secure public Wi-Fi available. Be sure to instruct your employees not to access any sensitive company data, but there should always be a back-up plan such as a virtual private network.
If you still have question about what you can do to keep your corporate data safe, we at Pearl Software can help! We are a user web filtering and internet monitoring company based out of Philadelphia, PA, and we would be pleased for the opportunity to help. Get in contact with our office so we can begin to keep you and your employees safe.