BYOD: a challenge worth tackling

IT must change its mindset of locking down technology and instead accommodate user-owned devices to create a more productive workforce.

Koby Amedume, director of EMEA marketing at Kaseya, says that fears around security should not stop IT departments from transforming working practices. “There’s no doubt about it – if implemented correctly the benefits that BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) can yield are substantial. Enabling employees to use their own devices, when they want, results in a happier and more productive workforce.”

Amedume does cede that BYOD is a ‘major challenge’. “Our research has found that more than a quarter of IT organisations believe BYOD to be a larger threat to their organisation than data breaches and the cloud.”

‘Stateless’ IT security, a theory put forward by Forrester is the direction businesses should be heading towards. “Organisations looking to achieve the ‘stateless’ IT security prescribed by Forrester, should look to extend their current IT solution to allow staff to automatically onboard their mobile device on to the corporate network, applying the same security policies as you would another desktop endpoint.”