General 2min de Leitura - 15 de September de 2015

What is BYOD and what are the challenges for its application?

Mãos digitando em teclado de notebook.

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[rev_slider alias=”360×280-cope-x-byod”][/rev_slider]It is increasingly common for employees to perform tasks, associated with work, through personal devices, cell phones, tablets and laptops. Making use of personal devices, for corporate purposes, is called BYOD (bring your own device), bring your own device. Companies adopting this model give employees the freedom to use their own devices, without using technological resources offered by the company.

The BYOD movement began about eight years ago, with the launch of the iPhone, gaining momentum in 2010, when Apple added corporate features to its operating system (iOS). After that, the adoption of the practice grew exponentially. Here in Brazil, 40% of companies allow employees to bring personal devices into the corporate environment. The main reasons that lead organizations to adopt BYOD are increased productivity, employee satisfaction and cost reduction with purchase and maintenance of equipment.

BYOT, BYOP and BYOPC terminologies

The BYOD concept has variations, according to the type of device used in the corporate environment, receiving specific acronyms, as shown below:

  • BYOT – Bring your own technology
  • BYOP – Bring your own phone
  • BYOPC – Bring your own PC

Challenges of BYOD

Just as the model brings benefits, it also increases the pressure on maintaining the security of these devices, including attacks of several types, virus action and risk of data loss or information leakage. Protecting your company data may be the greatest challenge of any BYOD program. In this sense, it is extremely important to implement techniques to minimize the chances of occurring claims.

Among the options to avoid security problems, we can highlight the limitation of access of employees to certain information and files, by application of security solutions with a focus on the perimeter and the endpoint, in addition to contracting other specialized services.

Knowing the importance of investing in tools that make the environment safer, about 70% of companies, that have some security policy, plan to increase investments in the area in the coming months, 57% expecting to increase 10% the amount invested.

In addition to the implementation of security solutions, the company must develop policy of use of technological resources, ensuring adherence to safety standards with the concept of BYOD. Although the concept is in full growth, many organizations that adopt the model do not have formal guidelines to help employees on the use of personal devices in a corporate environment.

Another concern of the managers is regarding legal implications for using particular devices with labor purpose, such as:

  • Privacy;
  • Risk of undue or unlawful content on the device;
  • Overtime and on call discussion;
  • Information security;
  • Damage to equipment.

This means that the company cannot just allow the use of personal equipment for corporate purposes, instead it needs to create a usage policy that covers all the legal risks the change may represent. The document should list all usage guidelines, emphasizing equipment ownership, safety requirements to meet, usage limitations and obligations.

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Does your company work with BYOD? Is there a security policy defined for using the model? Leave your experiences in the comments!

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This post is also available in: Português English Español