Every business in the modern age of technology needs to factor mobile security into its strategies. These days, most people you meet will own a mobile phone; they are probably the most popular and widely used type of technology around the world – they are the primary way that much of the population accesses the internet, and so it is important that they are protected in the right way.
The field of cybersecurity is constantly growing and changing because the threats that occur online are also constantly adapting. Businesses in particular are big targets for cyber-attacks; and more and more of these attacks are targeting mobile phones. TechQuarters, a company that provides managed IT services London organizations have been using for many years, discussed with us the ways in which businesses can secure their employee’s mobile devices. The checklist we have compiled below includes the minimum necessary measures that businesses should implement.
1. Identity and Access
When you are providing employees with business phones for work, you want to ensure they are the only ones who can access the phone. In its most fundamental form, identity and access control can be as simple as making your employees set up pins and passwords for their phones that only they know – or, even better, they set up facial recognition to unlock their phone. Identity and access control can be made even more complicated – for example, by making a mobile device unlockable only in certain locations.
2. Data and Communication Encryption
The movement of data, and communication, should be encrypted for business use. Often, we will readily send data over unsecured networks – such as public Wi-Fi or cellular mobile networks – without thinking about the fact that data can easily be intercepted on such networks (this is known as a man-in-the-middle attack). Businesses should ensure that corporate data on an employee’s mobile device is encrypted both at rest and in transit. The same is true for communications; end-to-end encryption for business communications is important.
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3. Mobile Device Management
As a business, you can either provide employees with a company-owned mobile device, or you can implement a BYOD (bring your own device) policy where employees use their personal devices for work. In the latter scenario, it is important to understand the potential risks of the policy. For example, it means that employees will be accessing and possibly even storing corporate data alongside personal data. It can be very easy for corporate data to leak out into places that it should be when improper BYOD policies are in place. A proper policy would implement mobile device management, thus allowing the organization to place controls on corporate data residing on an employee’s personal device – such as disabling copy/paste permissions for all corporate data.
Mobile device management is also essential for setting up the proper protocols in the event of device theft. If an employee’s device is stolen (or even irrecoverably lost), the organization needs to be able to wipe all corporate data from the device remotely.
4. Malware and Antivirus
Mobile devices are just as susceptible to viruses and malware as PCs are. As a matter of fact, more and more malware and viruses are being tailored to mobile devices, and the false sense of security people have with their mobile devices can increase the chances of devices being compromised. Some solutions for mobile device management include virus and malware scanning functions that enable organizations to ensure work devices remain clean.
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5. Raising Awareness
Mobile security cannot be guaranteed entirely with technology solutions; the factor of human error must be addressed as well. Employees can often make mistakes that risk undermining all the security measures taken by an organization. Therefore, employees need to be educated on mobile security. They should be taught about recognizing certain types of attacks (such as phishing scams or malvertising), how to spot a fraudulent email, how to check if a webpage is secure or not, and the potential vulnerabilities a mobile device has might have.
