As a business, you must protect your customer’s information from the myriad of threats that exist in today’s digital world. There are so many more points of attack and methods of attacking available to the hacker today. It is truly frightening to understand the severity of the threats that exist.
One of those attack points is mobile devices. Below is an interesting graphic published by ComScore that shows device usage during a typical weekday. It is interesting to see that phones and tablets win the day outside of business hours.
Device Usage
The question from a security standpoint becomes, “Are these devices connected to your business?” and “Is there business data on them that needs protecting?”. If you are a health care provider, do employees get email on their phones that could potentially contain protected data? The problem becomes evident when phrased as such.
In today’s word of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), employers face the challenge of securing company data on devices that they might not own. Ten years ago, companies supplied the cell phones for their employees. That is not the case today in many cases. Before we touch on technology that can help resolve the problem, it is important to discuss the policy first. Does your business have a policy in place regarding mobile devices? BYOD? If not, it is the year 2014 and it should be a part of every company policy handbook, large or small. You need to decide what information is allowed on these mobile devices and what the end users responsibilities are. Setting the policy in writing is the first step to getting a handle on the problem.
From a technology standpoint, Colden Company Inc. can help. We offer Mobile Device Management solutions both for company owned devices as well as BYOD devices. The set of available features differs between the two. For example, for company owned devices, you have the ability to track phones calls and text messages etc. These features would not be available on BYOD phones. But you can still enforce policies like requiring a pin code for phones, or the ability to wipe the phone to protect your critical company data. In the case of either company owned or BYOD phones or tablets, you can secure your company’s critical information for pennies per month. Considering the starting sizes of HIPAA fines, or the costs of reporting a data breach, Mobile Device Management is something your business should strongly consider.
Please call us at (888) 600-4560, email us at info@coldencompany.com or see us on FaceBook (like us!) or Twitter – @coldenco.