2020 was a year like no other in recent history. Employees who have never worked remotely found themselves amidst a fully distributed workforce. With this change in the corporate landscape, the acronym BYOD became commonplace. BYOD (unfortunately) doesn’t stand for Bring Your Own Dessert or Bring Your Own Drink – it stands for Bring Your Own Device, which is corporate speak for allowing employees to use their personal mobile devices (or computers) to access company data.

As a result of COVID, many companies had to adjust their remote access and BYOD policies to accommodate the changing environment, and with that change comes security vulnerabilities.

BYOD has grown in popularity and is estimated to reach a market value of almost $367 billion by 2022, according to research by Global Market Insights, Inc. It’s worth noting this research was published in 2016 – it will be interesting to see how the projections change in a post-2020 world.

As a managed service provider, Matsco is well versed in the complexities of remotely accessing corporate data from company-issued and / or personal devices while keeping security in mind.

We previously covered Mobile Device Management (MDM), which is often implemented for company-issued devices. As more companies opt for BYOD, it is highly recommended a Mobile Application Management (MAM) program is implemented as well.  

WHAT IS MOBILE APP MANAGEMENT?

Mobile Application Management (MAM) is software that allows IT Administrators to provision and control access to enterprise data among apps on a device. Administrators can separate business apps and data from an employee’s personal data on the same device. For example, Administrators can enforce a secure password on business apps, disable sharing data (including copying and pasting) from a business app, and remotely wipe business apps without affecting personal apps or data.

Mobile Applicable Management is essential to companies who allow remote access via personal devices.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT MOBILE APPLICATION MANAGEMENT?

Privacy Concerns Alleviated

While some employees may have resisted enrolling into the BYOD program for fear of sharing personal content with their employer, this year forced everyone to reconsider previous preferences. MAM puts to rest many privacy concerns by allowing employers granular security controls over individual apps to exclusively manage corporate data – simply put, Administrators can’t see the contents on the personal device. 

For example, Administrators can enforce a secure password on business apps, disable sharing data (including copying and pasting) from a business app, and remotely wipe business apps without affecting personal apps or data.

Cost-Effective Collaboration Opportunities

MAM also helps manage collaboration with contract and/or part-time employees where it may not make business sense to distribute company-issued devices.  MAM provides increased flexibility for your business where MDM may not.

BEST PRACTICES FOR MOBILE APP MANAGEMENT

Audit Installed Apps and Enforce Compliance

You should generally aim to audit installed apps for non-compliance. For instance, daily or on-demand audits can be carried out to detect and remove non-compliant apps.

Verify Multi-Platform Support

Before choosing a mobile app management solution, you should ensure that it offers support for multiple mobile operating systems (for example, iPhone and Android). You should also ideally have on-demand access to the solution via a self-service portal and an on-device client for flexibility.

Consider Restricting Email Access to Outlook

One of the security concerns with a phone’s native mail application is the ability to toggle between email accounts when forwarding a message. For example, an employee can open a confidential email with sensitive data on their corporate account, and then forward the message – but before pressing “send”, they can change the sender to their personal email address. This can result in data loss, and what’s worse, this action is largely untraceable, even with email archiving tools.

Instead of allowing employees to use any mail application on their personal devices, restrict corporate email access to the Outlook app, where you can prohibit changing the sender in a forwarded email.

Consider Restricting Copying + Pasting in Corporate Apps

This may seem like overkill but restricting copying and pasting when using corporate apps is a good practice to prevent data loss. Many MAM solutions allow for copying and pasting within corporate apps (e.g. Outlook and Teams) but won’t allow users to copy and paste from Outlook to the Notes app, or a text message. As an employee with MAM on my phone, the only inconvenient situation I have encountered was trying to copy and paste an address from an email into Google Maps!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Your company’s remote workforce may have expanded significantly in 2020 resulting in an increase of remote devices to manage. Mobile Application Management offers companies a wide range of capabilities to protect corporate data at a much lower cost than providing company-owned devices, with employee privacy concerns alleviated.

Questions? Contact Matsco at info@matscosolutions.com