My Own Device ( Byod ) And Risks Associated With It

Abstract This paper is about Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and risks associated with it. The conditions for risks to occur, the managerial and technical solutions to such risks are discussed. Introduction BYOD or Bring Your Own Device refers to the policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and smart phones) to their workplace, and to use those devices to access privileged company information and applications (Bradley December 20, 2011). This concept is a growing trend for the information technology and many more business sectors. Businesses that appreciate Bringing Your Own Devices have some advantages over the others. For instance, the costs tend to shift towards the BYOD user instead of†¦show more content†¦However there are an equal amount of risks involved with this. Security has been the primary concern. A superior authority monitoring the employees all the time is impossible. The manager has no right to access the devices of the workers as they are private. Also this might reduce productivity if the employees lose focus on work and use their devices for entertainment or personal benefits. Using and misusing data, network or resources in the workplace for personal gain. In some cases, data can be stolen from the organization using such devices causing loss or theft of data. Hence there is lack if control and potential malware threats (Pillay, Diaki et al. 2013). Trend Drivers for BYOD BYOD is gaining high popularity and growth which is evident from the Ovum’s research paper published in 2012. Respondents in the emerging, â€Å"high-growth† markets (including Brazil, Russia, India, UAE, and Malaysia) demonstrate a much higher propensity to use their own device at work. Almost 75% of users in these countries did so, compared to 44% in the more mature developed markets. The research revealed that 79% of employees in high growth markets believe that constant connectivity with work applications enables them to their job better, versus 53.5% in mature markets. There is a distinct lack of BYOD management – everywhere. On average only 20.1% of employees who use personal devices have also signed a policy governing that behaviour. USA and India are nearer to 50%. The