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BYOD: Businesses Beef up Security as the Line Between Employee-owned and Business-owned Devices Blurs
Gartner estimates that about half of global businesses will have BYOD policies by 2017 whereby employees will need to provide their own devices. About 15 percent of business will opt to continue to provide their employees with devices, and another 40 percent will offer employees a choice to either use devices which the business provides or to use their own personal device.
David Willis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said that “we’re finally reaching the point where IT officially recognizes what has always been going on: People use their business device for nonwork purposes. They often use a personal device in business. Once you realize that, you’ll understand you need to protect data in another way besides locking down the full device. It is essential that IT specify which platforms will be supported and how; what service levels a user should expect; what the user’s own responsibilities and risks are; who qualifies; and that IT provides guidelines for employees purchasing a personal device for use at work, such as minimum requirements for operating systems.”
Cisco recently looked at how BYOD policies are affecting workers globally and surveyed employees in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, China, Germany, and India. Cisco found that the use of personal devices by employees on company networks was widespread. 89 percent of organizations allow their employees to use their own devices at work. Cisco estimates that in the companies surveyed that there are about 198 million personal devices being used on business networks, and they expect that number to increase to 405 million by 2016.
But BYOD policies can be a headache for IT departments. Managing security of the across the data, network and and myriad of devices becomes increasingly difficult. As, a result, IT departments are increasing their spending on security. The Gartner report notes that “the evolution of new threats and working practices, such as bring your own device (BYOD), is driving spending on security.” Global spending on security was up nearly 8 percent last year, reaching $19.2 billion.
