Write an official company policy that spells out exactly what you expect employees to do and not to do on and with their mobile devices.
The bring your own device (BYOD) trend allows employees to work using their own mobile devices and saves small businesses money in device and carrier plan costs. The downside is that personal mobile devices rank among the greatest security threats your company faces. Small Business Computing offers seven mobile security best practices can help small businesses manage the personally owned devices in their company.
Recommended Reading: Webopedia’s BYOD, consumerization of IT and security software definitions.
1. Have an Official Company Policy for Mobile Devices
Write an official company policy that spells out exactly what you expect employees to do and not to do on and with their mobile devices. Your policy should include real-time communication and education channels to distribute information to mobile users and don t make exceptions to your policy not even for yourself or for key employees.
2. Invest in Mobile Security Solutions
Be sure to deploy antivirus and malware solutions across all mobile devices. Rather than expect your busy staff (or your busy self) to maintain and upgrade the software as necessary, automate the process so that you know security software is in place and current on every device.
3. Use a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution
Choose a mobile device management (MDM) product that supports multiple platforms (i.e. Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows) to take the pain out of managing multiple systems. Look for a system that offers one management console to manage all mobile devices from one point. Many MDM solutions offer optional application management and content management feature sets to protect the organization s data and provide users with secure access to applications and data.
Read the complete article: BYOD and Mobile Security for Small Business.
This article was originally published on July 25, 2013
