It’s Time for Better Management of Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have become the #1 cause of data leakage and loss for businesses. Why is that? Because business don’t actually know which mobile devices employees are storing data on and because mobile devices are also now the #1 target for virus infection.

Know who has your data: Employees have enough skills these days to set up their phone to sync email with attachments, contacts, calendar and sometimes even files without informing anyone that they are doing so. It doesn’t occur to them that this might be a problem. But think of all of the data this puts on the phone! Our investigation has shown that some employees have 3 or 4 mobile devices connected to their work email account and often also their home computer as well. The business should at least know and provide permission before a new device connects. Fortunately, we now have the ability to enable this in Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013 and Office 365. Using the built-in tools we can make Quarantine the default setting for new connecting mobile devices. This way when an employee wants to setup email on their iPad you’ll know about it because we will ask your permission to release it from quarantine and allow the email, calendar, contacts and files to begin to download onto that device. This will also give you a chance to make sure that the employee knows what your corporate policy is regarding the use and storage of your information on their devices. If you don’t have a mobile device policy, let us know we have a sample that we can share with you.

mobile devices

 

Protecting Mobile Devices from Infection: Mobile devices are now the #1 target of infection. Generally the trojan is buried in an app, often a game. The purpose of that trojan is to quietly gather account information, passwords, email addresses, credit card data, contact information, anything of value that can be sold from your phone. Trend Micro has added mobile device malware detection and removal to the package of services that now come with every subscription to Trend Worry Free Business Services which is what you already own. For each anti-virus license you have purchased you now have 2 mobile device security installations available. Should your mobile device policy require that this is installed on an employees phone before they connect to your network and start downloading email and other data?

Have Clear HR Policies Regarding Your Data on Mobile and Personally Owned Devices: Make sure that your HR policies are up to date and include how your data should be handled on mobile and personally owned devices. Does the Company reserve the right to wipe the device? We have the capability to do that. Does the employee require permission to sync data onto mobile devices? What is the procedure to be followed when the mobile device is no longer in use? What is the procedure when the device is stolen? Should you require a security code be active on the device? Is the employee informed that sync’ing the device will subject that device to certain corporate security policies? There are lot of scenarios that should be covered in your mobile data policy. We have some samples we can provide if you would like a starting point.

– Amy, Harbor Computer Services

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