What is Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)?

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is an increasingly popular trend in which employees use their personal devices for both personal and professional purposes within the workplace. This approach offers significant flexibility and convenience, benefiting both employees and employers, especially as reliance on mobile technology grows.

However, the rise of Bring Your Own Device also introduces new cybersecurity risks, making it essential for businesses to implement robust security measures to protect sensitive data. In a world dominated by remote and hybrid work models, understanding the implications of Bring Your Own Device is vital for organizations striving to maintain strong cybersecurity protocols.

Bring Your Own Device: The Benefits

The adoption of Bring Your Own Device policies in enterprises offers several key advantages, but it is essential to balance these benefits with the associated risks. Here are some of the most important benefits:

• Cost Savings: Implementing Bring Your Own Device policies can substantially reduce costs for companies. When employees use their own devices, businesses save on the expense of purchasing and maintaining equipment. This financial benefit allows companies to allocate resources to other critical areas. Additionally, the reduction in IT infrastructure costs can enhance the bottom line, enabling organizations to invest in new technologies or training initiatives.
• Increased Productivity: Employees are often more comfortable and efficient when using their own devices in a Bring Your Own Device environment. Familiarity with personal devices reduces the time spent learning how to use new equipment and software, allowing more time for actual work. Studies show that 50% of employees feel more productive when using their own devices for work purposes.
• Extended Work Time: Research conducted by Samsung and Frost & Sullivan has shown that personal smartphones, in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment, enable employees to gain almost an additional hour of work time each day. This contributes to a 34% boost in overall productivity, demonstrating that employees can perform more tasks and work more efficiently with their own devices. The ability to seamlessly switch between personal and professional tasks also helps employees feel more in control of their work-life balance.

Bring Your Own Device Security Risks

The primary challenge of Bring Your Own Device policies lies in the associated security risks. According to Tech Pro Research, 26% of survey respondents cited security concerns as the main reason for hesitancy regarding Bring Your Own Device. Employee-owned devices often lack the same security measures as company-provided devices, making them more susceptible to breaches. Approximately 50% of organizations with Bring Your Own Device policies have experienced security breaches due to security flaws in personal devices.

Bring your own device security security risks include weak security on personal devices and the variety of devices, making it hard for IT to enforce consistent policies.

The Role of Employees in Reducing Security Risks

Employees play a critical role in reducing security risks within organizations. Carelessness and negligence when using Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) can lead to severe consequences. The absence of adequate security features on personal devices means that employee awareness often serves as the only barrier between a malicious actor and a successful hardware-based attack.

Training employees on cybersecurity best practices is crucial. Regular workshops and training sessions can help them recognize potential threats, such as phishing scams and malware. Additionally, fostering a culture of security awareness encourages employees to take ownership of their device security. This ensures they remain vigilant against potential threats.

Employees Devices Can Be Targets for Cyber Attacks

Employee-owned devices can become prime targets for criminals, particularly in unsecured environments. Key threats include:

• Unsecured Access Locations: Employees carry a significant amount of sensitive company data on their devices, making them targets for attacks, especially when using their devices remotely or connecting to public WiFi networks, where malicious actors can infiltrate the device. These unsecured networks can provide an easy entry point for criminals, allowing them to intercept data and compromise devices.
• Public Charging Risks: Using public charging kiosks that have been tampered with can allow malicious actors to gain remote access to a device. This method of cyber infiltration is sometimes called “juice jacking” and is growing in prevalence. Malicious actors can install malicious software on the device or steal sensitive data while it charges. Employees should be educated on the risks of using public charging stations. They should also be encouraged to use their own chargers or portable battery packs.

Spoofed Peripheral and Malware

The significance of Bring Your Own Device security risks is particularly pronounced in relation to spoofed peripherals. A spoofed peripheral is a type of rogue device that impersonates a legitimate Human Interface Device (HID), often referred to as a “bad USB.” These devices are manipulated at the physical layer, which is not covered by existing security software solutions, so they are not recognized as malicious by the endpoint. To the human eye, such devices appear innocuous and raise no alarms. These spoofed devices can carry out a range of malicious activities, from robbing data to delivering additional malware to the connected system.

Malware can get onto mobile devices numerous ways including through spam emails, links and rogue programs or apps. Similarly, trojan malware can be embedded through SMS messages and social network links.

Spoofed peripherals also have the ability to inject malware onto the endpoint to which they are connected. Malware is perilous as it can spread to other devices on the business’ network, generating considerable damage. US mobile malware rates are increasing each year. With Apple’s operating system receiving five times more malware than in the five years previous. These figures indicate a growing risk to organizations that permit bring your own device.

Device Theft and Insider Threats

Acquiring lost devices provides malicious actors with an alternative way to access an organization’s network and valuable information. If this happens, even the best security systems and antivirus software may prove ineffective. Password-protected devices are not fully secure, as malicious actors can often bypass a password on a lost or stolen device. Employees should use strong access codes and enable multi-factor authentication to secure their Bring Your Own Device setups.

Insider threat also pose a to an organization and bring your own device facilitates their operations. Mobile devices make it easier for malicious employees to access the company’s network and pilfer sensitive data.

Bring Your Own Device Security

Various technological solutions can help reduce cybersecurity risks, especially in environments with Bring Your Own Device policies. Here are some key solutions:

• Data Encryption: Encrypting data that goes beyond the control of the organization is necessary and it should be performed throughout the data’s life cycle. 76% of companies do not encrypt mobile devices, which makes them extremely vulnerable. Furthermore, the IT department should take control of encryption keys to prevent unauthorized access and to maintain the encryption, should a breach transpire.
• Containerization: This method segregates a portion of the device into its own protected bubble, separate from the other applications and content on the device, and it requires password access.
• Whitelisting: The opposite of blacklisting, whitelisting gives employees access only to a list of approved applications. This can be a more appealing solution to employees as there is a more extensive range of applications and websites that exist.
• Blacklisting: An organization can use this feature to block apps and websites considered security threats or those that could hinder productivity, like games and social networking apps.
• Antivirus Software: Installing antivirus software on individual devices will enhance security by protecting devices from malware attacks.

Overcoming BYOD Security Risks

Many times, enterprises’ IT and security teams struggle to provide complete and accurate visibility into their hardware assets. This is especially challenging in today’s complex IT, OT, and IoT environments. Often, visibility gaps weaken policy enforcement for hardware access, including Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenarios.

This may lead to security breaches, such as malware attacks and data leaks. To address this challenge, complete visibility into hardware assets is essential, regardless of their characteristics or connection interfaces. Attackers often exploit security gaps. It’s crucial to adopt cybersecurity protocols designed to block them, especially against USB Human Interface Device (HID) emulators and physical layer network implants.

Bring Your Own Device Security Solution

Sepio is the leader in the Rogue Device Mitigation (RDM) market. It is disrupting the cybersecurity industry by uncovering hidden hardware attacks operating over network and USB interfaces.

Sepio’s platform, identifies all peripherals. No device goes unmanaged. The only company in the world to undertake physical layer visibility fingerprinting. It generates a digital fingerprint using the device descriptors of all connected peripherals. It then compares these descriptors against a well-established database of malicious devices, effectively initiating automatic attack prevention. With Machine Learning, the software analyses device behavior to identify abnormalities, such as a mouse acting as a keyboard.

See every known and shadow asset. Talk to an expert to understand how to use Sepio’s patented technology to gain control of your asset risks and implement effective Bring Your Own Device security solutions.