MAKING BYOD SAFE How Dean Lause Is Mitigating The Massive Cybersecurity Risk ALL Businesses Face With His Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Plan
I n early 2020, Dean Lause, chief technical officer of Argentum IT, received a frantic call from the head of a prominent law office. The staff at the law firm had become accustomed to working remotely, and business was booming. The partners were enjoying the advantages of the work-from-home environment — productivity was up, costs were down, and employees were feeling a greater sense of work-life balance. It only took a few seconds for that to change. Across town, one of the firm’s attorneys was running to an appointment while quickly sending a few emails. Suddenly, he froze and had an uneasy feeling. Did that last email go to its intended recipient? He checked his sent items and felt his knees buckle. Sure enough, the message, which contained the firm’s entire customer list, had just been delivered to its biggest competitor. The fallout was tremendous. Not only did the head of IT find himself looking for a new position, but the law firm also found itself in the precarious position of needing to reestablish trust with its clients after proprietary information had been disclosed so carelessly. It’s disasters like this that play out in companies every day that have Lause on a mission to get companies to implement what he refers to as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) plan. “Part of what I do is help companies implement BYOD strategies that work,” Lause explains. “With the proper security controls and precautions in place, you can protect organizations and prevent sensitive data leakage, potential lawsuits, and even sabotage.” Lause, who adopted a work-from-home lifestyle 25 years ago, says that even before the COVID-19 crisis, companies were adapting to the BYOD environment because of the numerous advantages, which include reduced expenses, improved productivity, and greater employee satisfaction. “Businesses that take advantage of BYOD practices can save at a minimum $350 a year per employee,” Lause says. “Using portable devices for work purposes saves employees about an hour per workday as well as improves productivity by up to 33%.”
While there are advantages, BYOD also poses a significant risk to a company’s network, files, phone systems, emails, and contacts as well as a host of sensitive information, including human resources reports, health information, legal documents, trade secrets, and even marketing lists. “You can no longer be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to cybersecurity and devising BYOD policies,” Lause says. “If companies are going to allow individuals to use their own device to access company data, they MUST have some way to contain the information that is private or proprietary to their organization and have control over what happens. As an example, an individual cellphone connected to internal wireless networks could have malware on it. That individual can inadvertently download it and infect a company’s network. This is just one of the many reasons for having the policies in place ahead of time.” “If you’ve taken reasonable care to ensure that your client’s technology and BYOD policy is current, the chances of their getting hacked are greatly minimized.” When Lause devises BYOD policies, he begins by leading clients through a discovery process, which includes determining their needs, figuring out what they are trying to protect, defining their framework for security, and assigning protocol. “It’s vital for companies to consider why they want BYOD in place and to examine their needs and concerns,” Lause says. “This is the most important item to decide upfront. For example, is it to improve workplace productivity or is it to make a network more mobile? Whatever the reason, a BYOD policy should be designed to optimize goals and be based on a strategy.”
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