An ever-growing IT problem across the modern business landscape of today is the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon. Not so much the idea of BYOD itself, but the refusal of many employers to believe in its significance and the contribution to the workplace that it is capable of. A recent study conducted by ITProPortal.com shows that 60 percent of companies do not have a reasonable BYOD policy in place. What this means is that corporate security can become a large problem if employees are conducting company business on their own devices, and an effective security policy isn’t properly safeguarding proprietary information. The single biggest security issue that results is from dropbox issues.
Dropbox, much like Google Drive and SkyDrive from Microsoft, is a wonderfully easy and functional application to provide file sharing for employees. The problem is that it presents a potentially very dangerous issue for company security. It can become problematic because of the relatively easy way for companies to completely lose control of critical files being uploaded to the app. This issue alone should force companies to start thinking more proactively about an effective BYOD policy. The problem gets even more compounded when you start dealing with employees having these critical files in the dropbox that they have access to after they leave the company. In defense of Dropbox, the app makes it very simple to just disable the employee’s access to whatever files they want. However, the truth is that especially in larger organizations, this sort of thing gets overlooked all the time. Employees who leave the company find that their passwords still work and they have access to files they shouldn’t have access to for months after leaving the company in some cases. IT security needs to play a bigger role in these situations in particular.
In conclusion, despite many employer’s best efforts to think of BYOD as merely a fad that will go away soon, there is simply no evidence to support that thinking. In fact, mobile devices are continuing to explode in popularity from the home to the workplace. Tablets and ultrabooks are flew off the shelves this holiday season as “The Gift.” Sure, many of them are going to people using them for YouTube videos of cats playing the piano. But many people are also getting them as tremendously powerful productivity tools to use at home and at work. With security being the single biggest concern on the IT battlefield of today, it only makes sense for employer’s to stop turning a blind eye to BYOD and act aggressively enough to embrace the idea and make it work for them, rather than possibly working against them.
Traklight is an IT company designed to help you identify, protect, and leverage your ideas for your startup, invention, or business. We are supremely confident in our ability to help your business succeed and grow with our accessible, fast, and affordable services. Contact us today for more information.