Adopting a Mobile-First BYOD Strategy

When it comes to managing the ever-changing technology landscape—enterprise mobility in particular is a beast. Business leaders are faced with a complicated mix of new devices, accelerated product lifecycles and system integration nightmares, compounded by what appear to be weekly cybersecurity hacks and compliance violations. Sadly this just scratches the surface of what CSOs, CISOs and CEOs face today.

The good news? Business leaders are now demanding more from their enterprise technology partners and vendors, throwing out underperforming solutions, and taking on new and innovative approaches. However, new technologies often bring new rules, requirements, policies and other critical considerations.

Take BYOD, for instance. Initially, the security and compliance concerns around BYOD were somewhat solved through Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) providers that helped deliver a secure workspace across mobile device, mobile app and mobile content management. It started with emails and progressed to full business application access.

However, there’s still a significant piece of the BYOD puzzle that is left unmanaged and unsecure—mobile text messaging and voice.

Consider that failure to meet electronic messaging compliance obligations was the No. 1 source of FINRA fines in 2013. In many cases, firms were unable to produce messages or prove appropriate supervision, according to a 2014 report from Sutherland.

BYOD Standards, Privacy Laws are Just Emerging

Employers recognize there are both risks and benefits when employees bring their own devices, but before personal devices are allowed, a company must assess the privacy risks and lay down clear rules. Mobile data security, like all security efforts, needs to be everyone’s responsibility. This is especially true to achieve a successful and compliant BYOD environment.

Clearly, businesses want this type of EMM-style solution to easily allow work and personal voice and text on a single device, yet keep the business and personal details separate. But until recently, the only options were costly, disparate solutions with device limitations or limited features and functionality, that didn’t present a viable, secure, enterprise-wide solution.

But today, that’s all changed. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend the recent BYOD whitepaper that my esteemed colleague K Royal, CellTrust’s Privacy Officer and I collaborated on, which provides more guidance on addressing these critical BYOD components.

Collaboration, Success through a Mobile-First Approach

Despite new security technology and software being developed, the best cybersecurity measure for any organization is an integrated mobile-first approach involving the right stakeholders. Designing a tailored strategy that connects privacy officers with compliance, IT with security and cybersecurity teams, will better help position an organization to strengthen its defenses while giving employees the tools they need to be more productive.

In the end, the biggest mistake companies can make is ignoring the implications of BYOD voice and text security issues. If you’re thinking about it now for the first time, you’re already late to the game. And, you can’t ignore it because it’s here to stay.