How often do you check work email on your mobile phone? Do you regularly utilize mobile business apps to do work?
If you do any of these things, you’re not alone. Mobile use has taken off both for personal and business needs, and smartphones and tablets are replacing PCs for many types of tasks. However, mobile device protection hasn’t yet caught up to this shift.
With mobile devices unprotected, companies run a high risk of becoming the victim of a data breach or ransomware attack. This is why it’s important to implement mobile device management (MDM) through an application, such as Microsoft Intune (part of Microsoft 365 Business Premium).
Mobile device management applications allow companies to easily manage the security and health of all employee devices. Some of the core benefits include:
- Ability to monitor device access to company networks, accounts & data
- Ability to stop unauthorized devices from accessing your resources
- Remotely push through OS and software updates & security patches
- Remotely grant or revoke access to a device
- Remotely lock or wipe a device if lost or stolen
- Monitor and log device access to company resources
- Protect the “business” side of an employee-owned phone, while preserving privacy for the “personal” side
- Manage and monitor remote employee work devices
Here are some of the key reasons that it’s high time to put a mobile device management application in place.
Mobile Devices Now Make Up 80% of Office Workloads
The use of mobile devices in business has crept up over the years, and now they handle about 80% of the workload in a typical office. Just think of all the business apps now available – most software would not even be considered by a company if it didn’t include a mobile app.
Many employees also find it easier to take care of emails from their mobile devices rather than a desktop.
With mobile devices being such a large part of the data stream in a business, it’s important that they are properly protected and that their connection to business resources is monitored and managed properly.
To Improve Cybersecurity
The most important reason to put MDM in place is to ensure your network isn’t breached via a mobile device. If you allow employee devices to connect to your network without any type of monitoring in place, you leave yourself open to all kinds of attacks, including ransomware, spyware, and insider breaches.
In 2020, 97% of organizations experienced a mobile device-related cyberattack, and 46% of them (nearly half) confirmed that at least one employee downloaded a malicious mobile app accidentally.
To Support a BYOD Program
Bring your own device (BYOD) is a popular way to handle mobile device use in offices. It’s less expensive for businesses because they don’t have to purchase multiple devices and mobile plans. Many employees also would rather get reimbursem*nt for business use of their mobile devices rather than having to carry around two smartphones all day.
But, if you don’t have mobile device management in place for your BYOD program, you can end up without any control over the security of the devices handling your business data or even knowing what devices are connecting to and storing company information.
A mobile device manager facilitates BYOD and can protect business data and mobile app use while avoiding any privacy issues due to the device being employee-owned.
Mobile Malware Is on the Rise
With the increased use of mobile devices over desktops, there has been an increase in attacks on mobile devices through malware and phishing attacks.
During the first half of 2021, there was a 161% increase in mobile phishing attacks experienced by energy employees. Additionally, 56% of Android users were exposed to nearly 300 exploitable vulnerabilities because they ran outdated OS versions.
Mobile malware is easily hidden in free apps that users download for other reasons (calendar, task manager, map, etc.). They don’t realize that the app is just a trojan for a malware attack.
Mobile device management allows you to protect all mobile devices used for business with uniform security policies. You also have the ability to update devices to ensure outdated apps and OS versions aren’t leaving your network vulnerable to malware.
Phishing by Text Message Is Becoming a Big Problem
Smishing, which is phishing via SMS, is becoming more popular. It’s also getting harder for people to detect because of the sophistication of the attacks.
Take this one case for example. A neighborhood recently had AT&T fiber installed and the company had an event to get new sign-ups. One of those new sign-ups received multiple text messages from AT&T to confirm the service, schedule installation, etc. Mixed in with the legitimate text messages was a message that had the address slightly wrong and asked for personal details to be sent back.
Luckily, in this case, the homeowner recognized it as strange and did not respond, but many would have been fooled and texted back sensitive information.
It’s important to have proper mobile device protection in place through MDM to help combat the dangerous rise of phishing via SMS.
Get Help Protecting Business Mobile Devices Today!
C Solutions can help your Orlando area business with an affordable mobile device management system that enables better cybersecurity and data protection.
Schedule a free consultation today! Call 407-536-8381 or reach us online.
