With remote work becoming a global norm, more and more companies are adopting BYOD (bring your own device) as well, as allowing employees to use personal devices for work purposes offers advantages, such as increased user comfort, enhanced flexibility, or talent retention. Employees are more comfortable with their own smartphones, tablets, and laptops, which can lead to improved productivity. Additionally, companies can reduce expenses by minimizing the need to provide hardware for every employee or contractor.
However, BYOD comes with significant risks as well.
Many cyberattacks start in employee devices, and data breaches have occurred as a result of BYOD. That’s because employees’ personal devices may lack the necessary security controls or might contain vulnerabilities and be susceptible to malware. Likewise, these devices can be lost, or an employee may be improperly offboarded and still retain access to the company they are leaving.
In reaction to the risks and difficulties, most companies prohibit BYOD altogether. This is particularly common among larger enterprises.
On the other hand, an increasing number of organizations see value in BYOD, and these companies should implement a comprehensive security policy to protect both their data and operations in BYOD scenarios. Compliance requirements may also impose legal responsibilities on such organizations, further increasing the need for well-structured BYOD security.
Key challenges of an effective BYOD security policy
A robust BYOD security policy is crucial for managing access to company systems from external devices—especially those the organization neither owns nor fully controls. For such a policy to be effective, it must address several critical aspects.
Platform diversity
One of the biggest challenges in BYOD environments is the diversity of devices and operating systems. Employees and contractors naturally prefer different platforms, from Android and iOS to Windows, macOS, and Linux. Each of these platforms presents unique vulnerabilities, expanding the attack surface and complicating the task of ensuring uniform security across the board.
Lack of mobile device management (MDM) solutions
In smaller organizations, the lack of sophisticated MDM solutions makes it difficult to centralize security management. Without comprehensive control over employee devices, enforcing security policies becomes a challenge. In cases where compliance with industry standards is a necessity, the absence of monitoring tools complicates the task of ensuring that policies are followed.
Incident response planning
Another crucial aspect of a BYOD policy is the ability to detect and respond to security breaches on personal devices. Organizations must ensure that devices used for business purposes can identify potential threats and respond accordingly. In addition, lost or compromised devices must be quickly cut off, with access revoked automatically to prevent unauthorized access.
Managing obsolete devices and unpatched vulnerabilities
Devices running outdated software or lacking security patches pose a serious threat. A well-crafted BYOD policy should automatically detect devices with obsolete operating systems and block their access until the necessary updates or patches are installed. This minimizes the risk of security breaches stemming from known vulnerabilities.
Why mid-sized enterprises struggle with BYOD
Not all companies have the resources to tick off every requirement listed in the previous section. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are at a particular disadvantage when it comes to cybersecurity in general, not just BYOD. However, that makes them no less susceptible to cyberattacks nor does it lessen their obligation to follow the requirements of cybersecurity standards and regulations (if the organization is obligated to comply).
SMEs lack the resources of large enterprises to implement robust BYOD security policies in-house, notably they suffer from smaller budgets and therewith connected shortage of qualified IT staff, which is why SMEs often look to outsource their security and compliance to external vendors and providers.
For example, Creative Dock, a globally successful venture builder, abandoned their legacy in-house solution for remote access and decided to implement a zero-trust architecture as a service using GoodAccess’ cloud platform.
How GoodAccess enhances BYOD security
GoodAccess envelops your critical systems, users, and their devices in a secure software-defined perimeter. Simply put, it ensures that no path leads to your sensitive data unless secured by GoodAccess.
That means that every device trying to connect must have an agent (client app) installed on it. This agent’s primary function is to establish secure connections with the zero trust network. This ensures that only authenticated and authorized traffic passes behind the perimeter.
However, the agent does more than that. One of its other functionalities is conducting regular device posture checks and comparing them to the security policies defined by your administrator in the Control Panel.
Before a device connects to the network (and at regular intervals after it has connected), GoodAccess checks it for a number of security policies that you specify. Most common checks are whether antivirus software is installed, up-to-date, and running, whether a firewall is enabled, whether the system is up-to-date, and whether screen protection is enabled.
Devices that fail to meet the requirements are logged and, depending on configuration, denied access. The user will then receive a notification with an explanation of the violation, so that the vulnerabilities can be remedied.
Device Posture Check enables organizations to enforce their device policy instantly and automatically over every device in any location, and ensures that only verifiably secure devices will be allowed access to critical systems.
Your device security policy can consist of various requirements. For example, Windows devices can be checked for the following:
- Operating system version and latest update,
- Running and up-to-date antivirus software,
- Disk encryption,
- Windows Firewall status,
- Screen lock protection,
- Membership in a specific Windows Domain,
- Registry settings,
- A specified file on the hard disk,
- A specified process running, and more.
Your policy settings take effect immediately. This allows you to update your policy in real-time, e.g. when you find out a new vulnerability in a particular type of device or OS version.
This automated mechanism enforces the device security policy immediately and for all the devices in your organization, even if you don’t own them and there are thousands of them. Your critical resources will be accessible only to secure devices and properly authenticated and authorized traffic.
Summary
The proliferation of BYOD has become a common practice among organizations that incorporate remote work. While BYOD offers benefits like flexibility, productivity, and reduced costs, it introduces significant security risks as well.
Companies, especially medium-sized enterprises, must tackle challenges like diverse device types and platforms, compliance requirements, or lack of experienced IT staff.
However, by implementing zero-trust architecture as a service, the organization can outsource a large part of the burden and meet the security requirements, while keeping the benefits of BYOD.
