Bring your own device With food comes appetite. A saying that can also be applied to the home office issue. Here, a stimulus – the corona crisis – is causing a development that only very few people expected in this form. The rapid increase in work within one’s own four walls means that employees not only use their work smartphones. Tablets or notebooks but often also private equipment for work tasks. A real danger!
The mass use of private equipment for working from home presents IT administrators with a major challenge. They must ensure the security and integrity of the company network and the systems located there, ensure the stability of the company’s IT and at the same time comply with legal regulations.
This is not easy in the case of devices provided by employees as part of the “ Bring Your Own Device ” (BYOD) scheme and only partially used for work purposes, or in the opposite case, with work devices that are also used privately. This is because the interests of the employer and the employee clash. Which sometimes cannot be reconciled without a certain amount of management.
Usually, the administration would look like this: an administrator would examine the device to see whether an application could spy on company data due to excessive rights. Any private information stored would have to be ignored. This is a step that is often not feasible in practice, however, and the administrator would almost inevitably violate the employee’s data autonomy. According Brazil Phone Number List to the General Data Protection Regulation, which calls for data minimization when it comes to personal information, viewing or even storing private data. Even on devices provided by the employer, is at least questionable, if not illegal.
Thankless Job
The administrator’s job is therefore thankless. He must fulfil his duties as carefully as possible. Respect privacy and ensure a sustainable result. How sustainable a protective measure implemented, including the removal of malicious or manipulative apps. Can be if an employee reinstalls apps of questionable origin after the process has been completed is another question. The employee can hardly be blamed for this. Because how could he have guessed that an editing program for funny image effects is actually used to spy on data.
For larger companies and corporations. Manual control is almost impossible due to the sheer number of devices used – especially in times of crisis when the number Cell Phone Number Database of employees working from home is exploding. Many companies simply have to rethink this. But not to the extent that they will put a stop to working from home as soon as the crisis is over. The trend towards more working from home existed long before the developments surrounding COVID-19. Although not as strongly.
Significantly simplify administration
The use of management automation using Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) is therefore a good option. This provides administrators with an overview of the end devices assigned to the company network via dashboards – even if they are located in an employee’s home network. First of all, it ensures the necessary endpoint security and provides information not only about connected end devices, but also about the software installed on the devices. UEM thus enables central management and tracking of the individual components. In addition to the use of private devices in the company network. This is also interesting with regard to the numerous small devices that do their job within the Internet of Things (IoT) – sensors or smart home devices, for example.
Once it is known which end devices are present. They should also be secured. The operating systems on the devices and also the applications must always be kept up to date. With a UEM, this happens automatically; administrators no longer have to spend time Bulk Database with individual devices. In addition, a UEM can divide a smartphone or tablet that runs on iOS or Android into a work and private area.Ffor example by encapsulating the work area. Selected apps then run in a separate area.
However, this should not be confused with a container solution, as this would lead to increased consumption of device resources such as memory, energy or processor capacity. When choosing a UEM, IT managers should ensure that functions that the operating system already offers are used for encapsulation. This also allows them to avoid dependency on the manufacturer of a container solution.
Good for the budget
Last but not least, a UEM also helps you save money. Companies often purchase licenses from manufacturers of applications and operating systems. From time to time, they either have to cancel the licenses. Because they are no longer being used to the extent they are needed. Or they have to buy additional licenses to avoid illegal use. Both can cost a lot of money: in the case of over-licensing. The sum of the license fees paid unnecessarily; in the case of under-licensing. A sometimes hefty contractual penalty with the possibility of a lawsuit. Automatic license management. Eliminates this risk.
