Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has become a norm for businesses today because it enables them to cut down the organizational cost for giving dedicated devices to each employee. At the same time, employees get the flexibility and choice of devices they want to use. But there are rising concerns about the security of data housed on personal devices of employees. Any business that implements this concept must absolutely have a proper BYOD policy in place. Beyond just having a policy, you must make sure that all the mobile devices in use are secure and the users are aware of the policies and best practices you follow. Here are the best practices you must integrate into your BYOD policy.
Consider organizational needs
Even before you adopt BYOD as a part of your business ecosystem, consider the needs of the organization. Also, assess your work culture, user habits, and even the applicable laws. For example, you need to understand how careful the users are likely to be while storing and accessing sensitive data via their personal devices. Identifying such organizational requirements or restrictions is helpful for building a standard structure for the adoption of BYOD on a holistic scale.
Define OS versions and device platforms
Once you know your needs and challenges, it is time to get started with the implementation part. First things first, the policy must clearly state the operating system versions and mobile device platforms you would want to support. The objective of this practice is to ensure that the mobile devices that you allow the employees to use for official purposes are equipped with the features that you require for fulfilling your needs and consumer expectations effectively.
Establish a device enrolment process
Establishing a device enrolment process is vital because you should allow only authorized users to connect with the business network and access the enterprise resources. The policy should clearly state that mobile devices have to be registered and authenticated first, before connecting to the company network. With this system in place, the network administrators can easily detect any unauthorized devices on the network.
Be proactive with monitoring
Remember that BYOD is here to stay, regardless of the risk of data loss and theft that it is associated with. Ideally, your IT department should be engaged in constant mentoring and management of these devices to prevent such issues. If your in-house team cannot handle these tasks on its own, outsourcing IT support for constant monitoring is a good idea. Unless you adopt this best practice, there will always be a risk of intentional or accidental data pilferage within the BYOD setup.
Ensure segregation of personal data
Since personal devices of the employee are likely to have personal files, applications, and other data, segregation is the best practice you cannot ignore. When such devices are enrolled within the organizational network as a part of the BYOD system, administrators should seek complete access to them. Further, the policy for the segregation of employee’s person must be clearly defined, communicated and implemented to ensure complete user privacy.
The policy must be the same for everyone
Different user roles within an organization have different levels of permissions and access controls. Therefore, there should be well-defined and proper guidelines and scope of access for each user role. Often, the top management is not present on the user list and is granted all the privileges, which is a wrong approach. The policies to manage the BYOD devices should be applicable for all the user roles within the company, including the top management positions.
Have an offboarding process in place
Another key aspect of an effective BYOD policy within an organization is a reliable offboarding process. Of course, you would not want any employee to have access to the business data after they leave the organization. As a best practice, you must have a proper protocol for the employee’s departure. State whether you will require a total or a selective device wipe to clear apps and data from their personal device. Convey these norms clearly to the employee during the BYOD enrolment process to ensure compliance at the time of departure.
Set a clear program for lost devices
When you implement a BYOD plan, you need to bear in mind the possibility of theft or loss of devices. For this reason, it is important to establish a process in your policy for the users to adhere to if they happen to lose their device. They should notify the IT team when this happens so that they can reset or wipe out the device passwords remotely.
Following these BYOD best practices will surely make the system more effective and secure. So you must absolutely do it.
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