Your laptops and phones aren’t all on protected WiFi networks anymore
As London continues opening up, more and more companies are returning to face to face activities. Whilst this is a great thing, there are risks that you need to consider, taking necessary precautions to protect your business. Let’s spend a few minutes looking at the IT risks associated with a far more mobile workforce.
What is happening?
As the city opens up, your Sales team is meeting prospects face to face. Your Operations teams are on client sites and everybody is commuting in to the office, at least once a week.
As a species, humans need that physical interaction. We all react far better, and more accurately, when we can properly see the body language of others. Understanding the subtle connotations in language and movement are far easier when sitting, or standing, in the same room. We feel the atmosphere in the room, either positive or negative.
Teams, et al, will continue to provide us with the time savings we’ve become used to, but the delight at being out and about is clear to see on faces all around.
What does this mean?
As your staff are moving about more, it means that your tech is moving about more too. Phones are using mobile data instead of connecting to WiFi and laptops are rested on laps on trains, client desks and lots of different places. As we are all moving about more, this means:
- More risk
- Less care
Less care
When working in the office, or at home, people are more inclined to follow security procedures. They are connecting to trusted networks that have security in place to protect the device and your network.
When people are out, their approach to mobile security sometimes lapses. Sales staff needing to download a document from the network connect to the nearest public WiFi, without knowing how secure it is. Mobile procedure may be to hotspot using the company phone, but if there’s a weak signal, they will find the closest possible connection and use that.
As people are moving around more, the other issue is simply losing endpoint (phones and laptops) devices. 2021 figures don’t seem to be available (expect to be low because of the lockdowns), but 2018 figures show that nearly 37,000 phones were handed in to TFL lost property (how many more weren’t?), with only 48% being then collected. Are you able to remotely wipe company data from lost laptops and phones??
More Risk
The more risk your staff take, connecting endpoints to unsecured connections, the more risk there is to those devices and to your network.
In a mobile work environment, endpoint security is vital. The risks to your business come in multiple ways:
- Lost, or hacked, endpoints provide access to your data.
- They provide a route into your network.
- There is a reputational risk, as you have to tell clients that your data, and their personal information, may have been compromised.
How to protect your business
To ensure your business isn’t impacted, there are a number of ways to protect your business:
- Add an endpoint security solution that limits what can, and cannot, be done and gives you remote access if needed.
- Educate your team on their IT security responsibilities.
- Limit the number of BYOD devices being used by your team, or insist Endpoint security is added to it.
By implementing these IT security measures, you protect your business. You protect your staff and you protect your clients. If this isn’t something your IT Support provider has discussed with you and you would like to talk more, call us now on 020 7227 9700. Let’s talk about your specific mobile security concerns and how to protect your business from them.
Want to talk about the impact of getting out there on your network security? Click here
