BYOD Security Implementation for Small Organizations

The exponential improvement of the mobile industry has caused a shift in the way organizations work across all industry sectors. Bring your own device (BYOD) is a current industry trend that allows employees to use their personal devices such as laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other devices, to connect to the internal network. The number of external devices that can now connect to a company that implements a BYOD policy has allowed for a proliferation of security risks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology lists these high-level threats and vulnerabilities of mobile devices: lack of physical security controls, use of untrusted mobile devices, use of untrusted networks, use of untrusted applications, interaction with other systems, use of untrusted content, and use of location services. A well implemented Mobile Device Management (MDM) tool combined with network access controls can be used to mitigate the risks associated with a BYOD policy.