Blog & Company News
Aug 19, 2013
Cavalier Attitudes Regarding “BYOD” Put Companies at Risk
What’s not to love about bring your own device adoption among organizations? Workers are able to enjoy the perks associated with BYOD such as convenience, and companies receive an increase in efficiency while saving money. It’s a win-win, right? Well, according to Fiberlink, not always.
Fiberlink and Harris Interactive recently conducted a survey that found over half (51 percent) of employees use their personal smart devices for work purposes.
While workers bringing their own smartphones and tablets isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is when an “overwhelming” majority do not use mobile solutions that control corporate data from enterprise data; i.e. putting their company at risk.
Of the 2,064 U.S.-based adults surveyed, 25 percent said they have opened and/or saved a work attachment file into a third-part app like QuickOffice, Dropbox, or Evernote. Additionally, 20 percent admit to having cut and pasting work-related email or attachments from company email to their personal email, and 18 percent said they’ve visited sites that are blocked by their company’s IT policy.
According to Fiberlink, this nonchalant attitude among employees, in addition to a lack of enterprise mobility management solutions, creates major security problems for companies. Top security issues faced from the BYOD trend include corporate data leakage, malicious apps, violation of corporate use policies and regulatory compliance.
Luckily, Fiberlink does offer organizations some advice on how to protect themselves from this risky employee behavior.
One approach suggested, for instance, is for companies to separate work and personal data through “dual persona.”
Dual personal solutions protect sensitive business information through an encapsulated trusted workplace or container within the device. This means that corporate email, corporate apps and corporate documents all reside in a container separated from everything else; allowing IT to control enterprises’ sensitive data, while not invading the personal privacy of the employee or their applications.
“Today’s work environment is a co-mingled mash-up of personal and professional activities. It’s not about sacrificing one for the other,” said Jonathan Dale, director of marketing at Fiberlink, in a company statement.
Regardless of the potential for lost company data, however, less than “one half of one percent” of workers said they already have a dual personal solution installed on their personal device. Fortunately, though, it’s not all bad news.
According to Dale, many organizations and employees are “starting to prefer the idea of a dual personal solution because it keeps enterprise data safe while allowing employees the freedom to work on their own devices.” Of those surveyed, 61 percent said that if their employer offered such a solution, they are more likely to install it on their personal mobile device
What’s not to love about bring your own device adoption among organizations? Workers are able to enjoy the perks associated with BYOD such as convenience, and companies receive an increase in efficiency while saving money. It’s a win-win, right? Well, according to Fiberlink, not always.
Fiberlink and Harris Interactive recently conducted a survey that found over half (51 percent) of employees use their personal smart devices for work purposes.
While workers bringing their own smartphones and tablets isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is when an “overwhelming” majority do not use mobile solutions that control corporate data from enterprise data; i.e. putting their company at risk.
Of the 2,064 U.S.-based adults surveyed, 25 percent said they have opened and/or saved a work attachment file into a third-part app like QuickOffice, Dropbox, or Evernote. Additionally, 20 percent admit to having cut and pasting work-related email or attachments from company email to their personal email, and 18 percent said they’ve visited sites that are blocked by their company’s IT policy.
According to Fiberlink, this nonchalant attitude among employees, in addition to a lack of enterprise mobility management solutions, creates major security problems for companies. Top security issues faced from the BYOD trend include corporate data leakage, malicious apps, violation of corporate use policies and regulatory compliance.
Luckily, Fiberlink does offer organizations some advice on how to protect themselves from this risky employee behavior.
One approach suggested, for instance, is for companies to separate work and personal data through “dual persona.”
Dual personal solutions protect sensitive business information through an encapsulated trusted workplace or container within the device. This means that corporate email, corporate apps and corporate documents all reside in a container separated from everything else; allowing IT to control enterprises’ sensitive data, while not invading the personal privacy of the employee or their applications.
“Today’s work environment is a co-mingled mash-up of personal and professional activities. It’s not about sacrificing one for the other,” said Jonathan Dale, director of marketing at Fiberlink, in a company statement.
Regardless of the potential for lost company data, however, less than “one half of one percent” of workers said they already have a dual personal solution installed on their personal device. Fortunately, though, it’s not all bad news.
According to Dale, many organizations and employees are “starting to prefer the idea of a dual personal solution because it keeps enterprise data safe while allowing employees the freedom to work on their own devices.” Of those surveyed, 61 percent said that if their employer offered such a solution, they are more likely to install it on their personal mobile device 
