How to Do the Impossible and Secure BYOD

By Will Houcheime, Product Marketing Manager, Bitglass

The use of cloud tools in the enterprise is becoming increasingly common, enabling employees to collaborate and work incredibly efficiently. On top of this, when employees are allowed to work from their personal devices (known as bring your own device or BYOD), it makes it even easier for them to share information and complete tasks. However, BYOD also makes it more difficult for businesses to oversee and protect the flow of corporate data. In light of this, Bitglass surveyed IT experts to learn about what organizations are doing to secure BYOD.

According to the report, 85 percent of organizations enable BYOD, making those that do not grant personal device access the minority. Additionally, BYOD is no longer limited to employees’ personal devices – data is also being accessed by contractors, partners, customers, and suppliers on their own private endpoints. As such, adopting a security solution built for BYOD (like an agentless cloud access security broker) is imperative for any organization seeking comprehensive data and threat protection. While companies are quick to enable BYOD because of its numerous benefits, failing to do so securely will inevitably leave the enterprise exposed to a variety of threats.

Despite the fact that there are many reasons to adopt BYOD, a handful of companies still refuse to do so. Our survey shows that the primary reason for this is an uncertainty over the ability to protect data flowing to personal devices. Employees typically reject the agent-based security tools (MDM, MAM, etc.) that organizations try to install on their personal devices when they want to secure BYOD. This is because agents can invade their privacy and harm their user experience. Our advice: Look for an agentless CASB that gives organizations comprehensive visibility and control over their data – even when it is being accessed by personal devices

In Mission Impossible: Securing BYOD, learn why companies are adopting BYOD, how they are securing it, and much more.