Allowing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy in your workplace can save you money in supplying hardware and implementing all the updates yourself, but you must have BYOD the policies in place before you proceed.
If you don’t have the policies in place before you launch BYOD in practice you could be letting yourself in for a multitude of security breaches. And even if nothing detrimental ever happens, the security risk is always there, with potential to cause headaches and data breaches further down the line.
Controlling device usage
All devices to be used to carry out your company’s business and operation need to be secure, and properly maintained and managed. It’s not ok to have non-work activities carried out on these devices, such as downloading games, applications and screensavers. These can all lead to security incidents.
Even though it’s not your hardware, you still have responsibility for what your employee does with it, and the protection of your business and client data.
But when you set up your BYOD policy, all these things relating to usage can be set out. For instance:
- Security software such as antivirus and spam filtering are installed and kept up to date
- Device encryption
- Device backup
- Password protocol
- Windows and other software are updated timely
Who has responsibility for what?
Any policy that concerns staff behaviour and protocol is the remit of your human resources department and should be included in your staff handbook.
When it comes to supporting the devices – yes, they will still need support even though they are not your hardware.
Remember the usage is still your responsibility.
It is recommended that all devices under the BYOD policy are covered by a managed IT support agreement to ensure they are supported, maintained and monitored properly. For example, for Microsoft 365 this should include connecting the devices to your organisation’s Azure AD.
Separate login for work and home
It can easily be enabled that there is a separate work and home login on each device so each user can keep their work and home computing separate.
A privacy mode will enable the user to be in home login mode while still allowing your IT support to monitor the device’s vitals.
Not sure where to start?
Your IT support provider should be able to help you with template BYOD policies and advise you according to your business needs and security. As your IT support provider, they are best placed to understand the risks to your business and what needs to be done to mitigate these.
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