Managing the BYOD risk

BYOD is a seemingly unstoppable force. Almost every organisation is grappling with it—whether they know it or not. Rogue devices, that are often outside of the control of the IT department, can be present on any network if the organisation is not continuously monitoring its network to discover all devices that are connecting to it. And it does not stop there—employees are increasingly turning to the use of unsanctioned applications, such as cloud-based file sharing services, because they feel they make them more productive, able to access the information they place in them from wherever they are, whenever they want, on any device they choose. Increasingly, they are using such services for gaining access to sensitive corporate information.

Network users that use personal devices and applications of their choice can inadvertently introduce security risks into the organisation, including viruses, malicious attacks and accidental data loss.

Bloor Research took part in a roundtable sponsored by ForeScout Technologies and facilitated by the Guardian and Infosecurity Magazine to discuss the issues surrounding the so-called consumerisation of IT. This article, originally published in the Guardian, is a write-up of the discussion: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/dec/02/managing-byod-risk.