How to mitigate risks associated with BYOD

The BFSI industry in India is still contemplating a formal BYOD policy, given its informal prevalence, some organizations have already introduced it while ensuring the security of sensitive corporate data.

In an interaction with CIOL, Naveen Chopra, Director for Vodafone Business Services shares his insight to latest trends in BFSI industry and how the Vodafone's recently launched Secure Device Manager can accelerate BYOD phenomena.

CIOL: Why organizations in the BFSI industry have been apprehensive to allow BYOD?

Naveen Chopra: Banks and financial institutions are entrusted by billions of individuals with sensitive personal and financial information. If this data is compromised, it can jeopardize an individual's financial well-being and the institutions reputation.

BYOD promotes the use of personal devices at workplace, employees carrying unsupervised devices may expose the financial institutions IT eco-system to trojans/viruses/sniffers etc. Unless closely governed and regulated via stringent mobile device security polici

es, BYOD may pose a security threat to BFSI operations. In the absence of credible solutions to manage their device fleets BFSIs have been apprehensive to fully adopt BYOD.

CIOL: What is the security challenges being faced by the industry while implementing BYOD?

Naveen Chopra: The biggest threat to any organization is accidental data loss OR planned information theft.

With BYOD, smartphones & tablets access corporate information from the same data-centres as personal computers (PC) do.

On the one hand organizations spend heavily on PC security, on the other they mostly leave personal mobile devices unsecure; they are seldom monitored OR managed by the organization. BYOD can be a big threat; it has the potential to expose corporate data centers and information stores to cyber-attacks / data-theft.

CIOL: How Vodafone Secure Device Manager helps enterprises monitor devices and manage risks?

Naveen Chopra: Vodafone Secure Device Manager is an solution for Chief Information Officers (CIO's) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) of India Inc. It provides them a secure management console which allows them to remotely configure & secure their organizations device estate.

Vodafone Secure Device Manager empowers IT administrators by allowing them to remotely manage security policies, device settings, certificates, applications, operating system etc. Vodafone's solution can also prove to be invaluable in the event of mobile device loss, it allows administrators to remotely lock or wipe all information from smart device.

CIOL: What are the trends for BYOD Vodafone Business Services foresees in the industry?

Naveen Chopra: Over the past few years, we've witnessed a steady increase in smartphone and tablet adoption across our client-base. As device variety and users within the corporate landscape have increased, so have security concerns of the enterprise administrators; they have been waiting for solutions to remotely manage and secure the wide variety of devices entering their organizations.

Now, with solutions like the Vodafone SDM, organizations can easily mitigate risks associated with BYOD and confidently allow users to carry personal devices for work. We expect organizations to fully exploit the range of benefits on offer with BYOD and promote adoption of smartphones and tablets within the corporate landscape.