Earlier BYOD, And Now BYON – Enterprises Will Be Under Security Threat For Sure!

A few days back we were talking and discussing about the security issues posed by the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). While the enterprises just started fighting-back to the security issues caused by the mobility solutions, the march of all new concept Bring Your Own Network (BYON) is making its entry in the enterprises silently, stealthily and totally outside of the management control.

Emergence of SAP enterprise mobility solutions has revolutionized the way enterprises were performing their critical business operations. But the security issues associated with BYOD proved to be a worst nightmare for the enterprises who have adopted it. However, in this post, we are not going to discuss about the security issues caused by the BYOD. But we are going to highlight the security issues posed by the BYON (Bring Your Own Network).

So, how does the BYON poses security challenges within the enterprises???

Almost all the modern Smartphones and tablets can be converted into a wireless hot spot within a few seconds, which will enable them and other wireless devices within a range to be easily connected to the web regardless of the place, whether it's outside the field or at the workplace. From the worker or employees’ point-of-view this makes sense. They may be not allowed to connect their personal devices to the corporate network or may wish to get rid of taking permissions.

Most of the employees are well-aware about the fact that a few of the sites like social media sites, betting sites and download sites are either blocked or have their use monitored. But with the help of their tablet having 3G/4G capabilities, they can get the speed of 12Mpbs to access all the data. But from the enterprise security point-of-view, it would pose security challenges.

However, one should remember that someone is paying a large part of their workplace time pursuing personal interests and presents a large hit for more productivity. These things also tend to endemic in the corporate culture and quite difficult to go back after a very short time. Moreover, such situation also brings a coach and horses via the policies you have created regarding the inappropriate or illegal material being viewed within the enterprise premises or workplace as it can easily bypass any kind of filters or logs created to avoid them.

Moreover, if you don’t have appropriate security measures – in order to prevent their connection to any unauthorized wireless access points and backing them up with the DLP on each and every thing to make sure the files downloaded elsewhere can’t be transferred to any of the computers- there is a huge risk of bridging the enterprise network.

Another big risk that can be critical for the enterprises is that the sensitive or critical business information or data will go another way through the unprotected and unauthorized devices.

Well, the first and the most important thing you have to do is to plan-out a clear and concise policy regarding the usage of the BYON within the enterprise premises. Another thing you can do is to carry out a business risk assessment involving the key risk stakeholders to identify the risks. Ensure you take these two steps as a high priority to prevent the security challenges posed by the Bring Your Own Network.

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