BYOD security challenged by device variety

Given the emergence of new technology and companies trying to cut costs, businesses that once supplied mobile devices to employees to be used exclusively for work purposes are now allowing employees to use their own mobile devices.

With employees increasingly using their personal smartphones and tablets for work purposes, companies face new potential threats to files and overall system security.

Companies began allowing employees to bring their own devices on a widespread basis in 2009, and the trend has now become mainstream, according to CIO.IN News. It took close to 18 months for the idea of allowing employees to use their own devices to take off, but now, companies are examining best practices and formulating BYOD policies to mitigate security risks.

"Personal smartphones, iPads and other tablet devices are migrating into the workplace at an unprecedented rate, which leaves IT managers with a real challenge: they know employees are going to use their personal devices for work, and there are tangible advantages to doing so - but there are also significant risks," said security expert Dan Gittleman.

Citing a study from the Jupiter Networks, PCMagazine recently reported that malware in Google's Android Market increased 472 percent since July 2010. Most of the threats came from spyware, which was aimed at communications, geo-location data and text message Trojans. Given this alarming figure, it is perhaps not surprising that businesses seem to have more readily taken to mobile devices running on Apple platforms.

Most of the "bring your own device" trend was influenced by the iPhone, which is becoming the corporate-standard smartphone, CIO.IN reported, also adding that BlackBerry corporate sales have decreased drastically as the iPhone emerged as a more dependable and technologically advanced brand.

The iPad was presented to corporations as an answer to the "bring your own device" issues with security. Corporations find significant value in the iPad, which is evident by the statistic that 96 percent of businesses have at lease one in use, according to the Aberdeen Group.

However, according to the website VentureBeat, Apple sold as few as 13 million iPads during the recent holiday season, which was 2 million less than expected. The low sales were thought to be caused by the release of Amazon's Kindle Fire, which was planned to compete with the iPad.

With companies being more encouraging of employees using their own devices, and with Apple, Google, Amazon and other mobile devices all being used simultaneously by workers, using mobile device management and iPad management software should be encouraged in order to keep private company files safe from malware.