BYOMD Unleashed: How to Securely Enable Bring Your Own Mobile Devices

Mobile devices are everywhere in the modern workplace. After all, the mobile device is a powerful tool that is in your pocket. With that being said, they’re expensive to hand out to staff and a hassle to implement into your organisation.

However, a new solution now exists. Bring Your Own Mobile Device (BYOMD) enables mobile usage in the workplace by letting employees use their mobile devices to save on their handsets. This means that employees don’t have to carry around two devices, and you don’t have to worry about loss or theft.

In this blog, we will go over the ins and outs of BYOMD and the many security challenges that come with BYOMD in the modern workplace. We’ll then go over one of the best tools for BYOMD in the workplace, Microsoft Intune, and how you can get started with it today.

What is BYOMD?

Bring Your Own Mobile Device (BYOMD) is an extension of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy that many organisations use for laptops and other devices. Essentially, it allows employees to access work documents, emails, applications, and other work resources using their personal smartphones.

There are many benefits to using BYOMD in your organisation:

• Convenience and Flexibility: Employees can use their own devices, meaning they don’t have to carry around two mobile devices and can access their work files wherever they are.

• Cost Saving: You save money on handsets as you don’t have to hand out your own devices. You also don’t need to worry about loss prevention or ensuring that staff leaving return work property.

• Leverage familiarity: As employees become familiar with these devices, they will not need to learn the ins and outs of a new device. They will know their phone inside and out and be able to be more productive using it.

Ultimately, BYOMD is an excellent concept, but it has flaws and challenges, especially regarding security.

The Security Challenges of BYOMD

Data Leakage

It can be challenging to ensure that your employees using BYOMD have the highest level of security, leaving concerns about data leakage.

After all, low-security measures on a personal device could lead to your sensitive data being leaked to others, and their devices could even have malware or vulnerabilities that make your data vulnerable.

Moreover, employees could accidentally share important information with other people on their devices or through cloud storage services. This will ultimately lead to important data being released, even if completely by accident.

Unauthorised Access

With less security than a company-issued device, a BYOMD device can easily be breached if someone else gets their hands on it. With a company-issued device, it’s far easier to lock and deactivate it, so its contents are inaccessible if lost. However, you can’t do that with a BYOMD device with ease.

In addition, accessing unsecured networks and access points with malicious actors around will put your data at risk, and BYOMD devices aren’t prepared for this eventuality.

Privacy Concerns

However, the most obvious way to protect your organisation is to use MDM software to manage your employees’ phones. This will allow you to manage each device from your IT department.

However, this raises some clear privacy concerns. After all, MDM software will monitor your employee’s phone, including all personal applications and data. Naturally, this is intrusive and gives a company too much control.

Compromised Applications

Intrusive or compromised applications could become a vulnerability, as those applications could take data from your employee’s phone and cause leakage.

This is because many applications ask for extensive device-wide permissions, meaning they can access data on any given mobile device, which puts your data at risk. Restricting applications would be the solution here, but ultimately, that is difficult to do on a BYOMD device.

Microsoft Intune: A Solution for BYOMD

Instead of relying on traditional, archaic MDM solutions that are excessively invasive, Microsoft Intune is a new, flexible solution that enables BYOMD for your employees without causing hassle or stress.

Microsoft Intune has many advantages over traditional MDM solutions:

• Privacy Concerns: You can segregate personal and work data using Microsoft Intune, meaning your enterprise device management will never have any privacy concerns. You won’t be managing their phone, just the segregated business data.

• Data Leakage: Microsoft Intune provides end-to-end encryption, meaning that even if data gets into the wrong hands, it can’t be accessed without an encryption key. Plus, Microsoft Intune is a secure, trusted application created by a well-known company, meaning that you can trust that its security is a higher standard than other MDM applications.

• Conditional Access: You can integrate Microsoft Intune with other Microsoft access control tools such as Entra ID, meaning that you can provide conditional access based on device location, user identity, and other factors. This will help protect from hackers and other bad-faith actors.

• Security Management: Microsoft Intune integrates with Microsoft Defender, meaning you can bring full security features to BYOMD without compromising quality or consistency.

Ultimately, Microsoft Intune is the pinnacle of modern BYOMD management and is a must-have for any organisation looking to introduce BYOMD into their business.

Ready to Get Started?

Bring Your Own Mobile Device (BYOMD) is a great asset for any organisation, but it has its own security risks. By being aware of those risks and using Microsoft Intune to facilitate BYOMD, you can ensure that the policy is successful throughout all aspects of your business.

If you’re looking to start with Microsoft Intune but don’t know where to begin, contact us today. Our experts are here to help you and will ensure you have everything you need to get started with BYOMD.

Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.

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