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Ahmed Datoo, Zenprise:
2011 Christmas Gifts Give IT Managers a New Year BYOD Headache
January 06, 2012
 The
turkey has been consumed, the Christmas presents opened and the New Year
has begun. For IT managers, the New Year may bring a new headache as
they return to the office—getting a handle on all the new smartphones
and tablets that employees received as holiday gifts and now want to use
for work.
Research published
this week revealed that a massive 20 million new devices were activated
over the festive period with a staggering 6.8 million first connected on
Christmas Day. And since 67% of workers* use at least one of their own
devices for work purposes, there's no doubt that many of these will
enter the workplace environment, proudly adorning their owners' desks
but causing potential nightmares for the IT department.
As a result the workplace will no doubt be rife with employees expecting
to access company email and applications on their new devices. And the
IT department will be expected to take responsibility for setting them
up, becoming either the "bad guy" if it gets blocked, or the hero if
they find an easy way to manage it.
Ahmed Datoo, CMO for Zenprise, sums up the challenge: "The ability to do
more work on a mobile device, whether it is a smartphone or tablet, is a
great benefit for both employees and companies. Using one mobile device
for both work and personal business can open the door for great
productivity improvements if the device is appropriately managed and
secured."
To help IT managers manage this onslaught of employee-owned smartphones
and tablets, Zenprise provides guidelines and a BYOD Tool Kit for
protecting the mobile enterprise.
Zenprise Guidelines for Protecting the Mobile Enterprise
Truly protecting mobile enterprises requires an end-to-end mobile
security strategy. Device security is no longer enough. Security threats
can occur at the network, application and data layers. The following
guidelines should help CIOs and IT administrators embrace enterprise
mobility in a way that keeps their company secure and compliant:
-
 Discover
rogue devices
- Define and communicate the
company mobile strategy, including which users and devices will be
supported, and which applications will be mobilized
- Get all mobile devices under
management
- Set configuration and security
policies in a role and policy based manner, according to corporate and
regulatory policies and security use cases
- Monitor for mobile threats,
potential data leakage and compliance violations
- Identify sensitive corporate data
and lock it down with mobile DLP policies and controls
Zenprise BYOD Tool
Kit
- Zenprise Rogue Mobile Devices
Assessment. A no-cost, no-install assessment to identify unmanaged
mobile devices on your corporate network
- Zenprise Enterprise Mobility
Executive Checklist. A checklist for technical and non-technical
executives to help them guide their organizations to successfully roll
out a BYOD program
- Zenprise Security Framework and
Whitepaper. A whitepaper that offers enterprise mobility professionals a
framework for ensuring mobile security, as well as a "top 10"
requirements list for mobile security evaluators
- Zenprise BYOD Service. A Zenprise
post-sale professional services engagement to help customers plan,
design, and implement a BYOD program that is tailored to their needs and
requirements
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