FEATURE : BYOD
James Hennah , Director – Security , BT Asia , Middle
East and Africa
adoption of mobile working and the BYOD trend , the workplace has progressively been advancing to centre more on how people connect digitally , and less so about the bricks and mortar that make up an office building .
Hennah said this has certainly accelerated this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic and businesses needing to quickly adapt to work from home strategies in response to that following lockdown measures that were implemented .
For instance , added Opil , the number of organisations with a BYOD policy has been steadily rising over the past several years .
“ In fact , a 2018 study by Oxford Economics for Samsung found that mobile devices form an integral part of the business processes of 75 % of companies . Moreover , only 17 % of employers prefer to supply their entire staff with corporate phones . The others all allow the use of personal devices at work to some extent ,” he said .
“ One of the biggest fears for businesses is the theft of , or untoward access to , confidential data – and this fear is intensified as business start adopting a digital , mobile and / or BYOD strategy . It certainly used to be simpler for businesses to protect devices within the traditional workplace or office , however , today business security controls must protect all employees and the sensitive data that they access , across a seemingly plethora of locations , devices and content types ,” he said . “ Businesses should be putting serious clout into designing and implementing their own enterprise mobile management ( EMM ) adoption strategies – that incorporate processes for safe integration of BYOD and work from home ,” he said .
Work from home
Bethwel Opil , Enterprise Sales Manager , Kaspersky in Africa , said given the restrictions the COVID-19 outbreak has had on working from the office , it should be noted that the importance of bring your own device ( BYOD ) was largely instituted prior to the pandemic .
Opil explained that if fast forward to 2021 and during the earlier phases of the pandemic , many organisations were instructing staff to work from home , including some that never even considered it before .
“ Given the speed at which organisations and employees alike , had to adapt to remote working , it is unlikely such policies – along with the potential increased risks associated with switching to remote working – were given due consideration .
“ However , with appropriately six-months of time to settle into the ‘ new normal ’, there has been a notable mindset change by employers and employees alike , towards the office versus remote working , with more now favouring the later ,” he said . “ While not all organisations will adopt complete remote working strategies , as this will largely be determined by the type of business and influenced by different staff profiles , we do expect to see flexible and remote working structures becoming a lot more mainstream post-Coronavirus .”
Ananthakrishnan Vaidyanathan , Product Manager , ManageEngine , said with the onset of COVID-19 and
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