Proactive BYOD

Throughout history, there are many examples of events that led to calamities. In hindsight, it’s often painfully obvious that they could have been predicted and prevented by proactive efforts. Bring-Your-Own-Device, often referred to by security officers as “bring your own disaster”, represents just such a sea change for enterprises. A new article in NetworkWorld discusses several surveys that show that BYOD is continuing unabated, and often, unapproved devices or apps are being actively hidden from hostile enterprise IT departments.

Organizational reaction to BYOD typically falls into one of three categories.

In some organizations, IT has mandated that there is no use of bring-your-own-devices or apps. In a very small number — for instance, military or government intelligence agencies — the organization has the ability to completely control all incoming and outgoing network access, and to enforce physical access to facilities by unauthorized devices, and the mandate works. For the vast majority of mandated companies, controls are company policies, and enforcement is by individual compliance. The Trackvia study finds that non-compliance with company guidelines is a significant problem, with almost 70% of younger workers admitting to doing so.

In other organizations, IT has recognized that mobile devices and apps are required to achieve peak employee performance, but have certified and approved specific devices and tools. TrackVia’s study finds this hasn’t worked either, with from 30 to 50% of specific employee age groups reporting they picked other devices or apps because the ones IT chose did not meet their needs.

CIOs in the last category understand that BYOD and BYOA use within their organization is inevitable, but struggle with the other harsh reality that by-and-large, employees just don’t care about security.

Clearly, employees drive organizations towards the third alternative, and organizational attempts to drive towards the first impact employee productivity and efficiency, and consume valuable IT funding and personnel resources.

Ohanae offers CIOs a better way to embrace the second and third choices. Ohanae’s Cloud Privacy Protection software suite allows enterprises to certify and support some third party applications and devices, or to be completely agnostic to apps and devices, against a secure backdrop. Ohanae software ensures that files are encrypted on devices and in the cloud, alleviating worries about data exposure on devices which are not certified, supported, or under management by an organization. Ohanae’s credential management system ensures that cloud based storage (and other cloud based apps) are accessed using secure, complex passwords that prevent account compromise and related data exposure. Ohanae’s secure file sharing allows users to collaboratively exchange data with industrial strength access mechanisms.

Ohanae Cloud Privacy Protection provides a safe environment for corporate data and credentials, and allows IT the time, freedom and safety to make the right choices for BYOD and BYOA that will keep IT users happy, productive and secure.

For more information, please see our videos: Cloud Compliance for Business and Cloud Compliance Policy.

Mobile, BYOD, and the Enterprise

The consumerization of the mobile and bring-your-own-device trends continues to gain exponential momentum in 2014. According to an infographic published this week in Information Week, 90% of employees use mobile phones at work, and 35% use personal tablets at work. Furthermore, employees use an average of 21 different apps at work. Although email remains the most often used, document-centric apps, including file sharing are now used by more than one in every five employees.

InfoWorld goes a step farther in an article this week, calling CIOs and business leaders to proactively embrace the two trends rather than just reacting to the inevitable employee uptake. InfoWorld cites potential benefits from employee productivity to better communication and engagement with customers.

At Ohanae, we agree that comprehensive adoption of bring-your-own-device (and bring your own cloud services!) and mobile have significant advantages for the business. But, it’s important to adopt technologies that will protect the business against data loss, account compromise, and device theft or misuse.

Cloud Privacy Protection incorporates a suite of capabilities to allow BYOD, mobile, and user selected cloud-based file sync & share in a secure environment. Cloud Privacy Protection includes protection for data in transit to and at rest in the cloud file sync & share provider. It also includes secure file sharing between collaborators, regardless of the mechanism of sharing. Finally, it includes protection for user credentials — the credentials that provide access to raw storage of encrypted data.

With Ohanae’s suite of cloud privacy protection capabilities, enterprises can feel secure in embracing new trends that embrace cloud storage, pervasive mobile use, and bring your own device tablets and laptops.