Dear Company Owners, CEOs, and Managing Directors,
Ask yourself these questions: Do you know what company information your staff has in their pocket? Do you know if it’s safe? What IT support do you have?
The upside of technology is that you now have access to your employees almost anywhere during the working day. The downside is that these same employees have access to sensitive company information, on and off the clock.
Whether you like it or not, more and more employees are bringing their own devices to work and using them to hold company data. Smartphones, tablets and laptops are used by your staff to send and receive emails with sensitive company information in them. Think file attachments, downloads, password access to company accounts. The list goes on.
According to Australia Mobile Telecommunications Association, 150,000 requests to block lost mobile phones are reported each year. This can be an expensive and frustrating process to have to manage time and again.
Instead of doing this, should companies take control of phones that access company data with simple IT support?
I, like many business owners, think the answer should be a resounding yes.
It’s actually quite a controversial idea. Many employees would balk at the idea of their employer having access or restriction rights to mobile phone use. However, it will only be a matter of time before it becomes a common workplace practice to involve IT support in securing devices.
When company data is involved, security is no longer an option for personal devices; it’s a necessity.
You now have a responsibility to your clients to manage and control their data, as well as your own.
Mobile networks are a high risk for data loss. Transferring valuable and sensitive private data poses a significant threat to your company and your clients.
The scary thing is, so many users ignore or blatantly disregard recommended security settings that aren’t hard to initiate.
Your mobile doesn’t have to be physically stolen for your data to be vulnerable. Open networks and unsafe practices are often perpetuated, allowing anybody with an internet connection (and a desire) to access your confidential data. A simple error by your staff of confusing the differences between public and private cloud services can cost your company.
So how do you protect data on mobile networks?
It has to be a whole-business approach in order to be a viable solution. Just one weak link and you may expose yourself to the worst of the threats and hackers out there. With IT support to help you secure your data, these threats will disappear.
If you can’t answer those three questions with any degree of surety, don’t wait until your security is breached to act. Contact an IT support managed service to run you through a security assessment. Because at the end of the day, your business can’t afford the risk.
Sincerely,
Neil Smith
General Manager, Leap Consulting
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