BYOD/BYOA – Danger or Opportunity?

BYOD/BYOA – Danger or Opportunity?
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is often the term used to refer to employees bringing their own mobile devices such as computers or tablets to work each day. Although BYOD is welcomed by many businesses today, there are some common security risks such as data theft, malware, viruses, and so on that must be considered.

BYOA (Bring Your Own Application) environments are also becoming common place as users bring their own applications and solutions such as Dropbox, Google Docs, Cloud CRM to solve their business issues and do not have to involve their IT departments. This makes it imperative that IT departments stay ahead of the risks, security and support that is entailed with these applications and devices. With both BYOD and BYOA rapidly penetrating the enterprise market and increasing the productivity of employees, IT will be challenged by the demands put in place upon them and will face an uphill battle if they do not adapt.
It is important that decision makers consider their options for managing both BYOD/BYOA. While some may opt for draconian policies that limit or prohibit their employees from using personally owned platforms or cloud based applications, various research recommends the opposite approach: that is, embrace BYOD/BYOA and the overall trend toward the consumerization of IT, realizing that the trend is not going away and that it can provide numerous benefits. In fact, an improving economy that provides employees more choice on where and how they work makes opposing BYOD/BYOA even more difficult for senior managers who might just lose employees as a result of overly strict or unreasonable BYOD/BYOA usage policies.
To equip enterprises with protection from these advanced threats, Mantralogix has implemented many practical and workable frameworks for unified security in a BYOD/BYOA environment with their strategic partners such as Kaspersky Lab and WatchGuard without sacrificing productivity and performance. With so many non-technical business users and departments adopting their own technologies on a massive scale to improve their jobs and performance, there is definitely a need for well-versed experts who can speak both business and technology.