10 Things to Ensure BYOD Never Compromises Your Data Security

One of the most noticeable trends we've seen in the past few years is the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon. With BYOD, enterprises allow employees to use their own smartphones or tablets to share files and collaborate with co-workers, business partners and customers in the corporate environment.

This freedom for employees to use the device of their choice not only increases productivity, it also enables continuous access to emails, files and documents anytime, anywhere. On the other hand, enterprises can get an instant return in terms of visibility, time management, cost savings, and a positive work environment - all without having to invest in expensive equipment, floor space or additional manpower.

According to a recent report , the global BYOD and enterprise mobility market is also currently undergoing exponential growth, from US$67.21 billion in 2011 to an estimated US$181.39 billion in 2017 with a projected CAGR of 15.17%.

Putting data security and integrity in jeopardy
With the popularity of BYOD, it's not surprising that employees often sign up for free consumer-class file-sharing services such as Dropbox, Apple iCloud and Google Drive.

In other words, employees are sharing business documents with third parties and storing documents in places that are completely outside of their IT department's control. This consumerization of enterprise IT services and the proliferation of BYOD are jeopardizing the safety and integrity of corporate information assets and creating serious threats, for example, data leakage and the loss of intellectual property, violation of regulatory compliance for confidentiality and retention, and exposure of corporate networks to external threats.

To effectively and securely support today's BYOD phenomenon, enterprises need to provide an alternative for file synchronization and sharing platform that enables users to access data and collaborate on any device, from any location at any time, and yet do it safely, and with corporate oversight, by using a private, object storage-based cloud.

Critical requirements for a robust enterprise file synchronization and sharing solution

To deploy a successful file synchronization and sharing solution with high ROI, IT organizations should consider the following requirements:

1. On Premise solution
Enterprises must look for a solution that allows them to keep data on-premises, within a data center that eliminates the security risks associated with public cloud services. The only way to achieve total security is if the mobile apps and business data are on-premises, sitting behind a dedicated firewall and sheltered by all of the defenses that this implies, such as anti-virus protection and access control.

2. Ability to manage all types of data
Employees use BYOD to check emails, review contracts and send documents. The right file sync and share solution must be able to manage all data types, including files, pictures, pdf and video clips, by providing a central, content-based data warehouse that works as a single source for file sync-and-share.

3. Sync-and-share ability
Employees are juggling multiple devices -desktop PCs, smartphones and tablets -all of which are configured with different operating systems (MS Window, iOS, Android, etc). The optimal file sync and share solution should provide standard features in file sync-and-share applications that can support multiple operating systems and a mix of mobile devices.

4. Stringent security control
Employees often work with sensitive data, such as quotations and sales contracts. Therefore, files should be encrypted, and transmitted over SSL. Depending on the level of control needed, enterprises can consider strict access control for individual files, password enforcement on specific devices, and even remote wipe and record access tracking and reporting.

5. Easy deployment and management

Integration with existing infrastructure is another important aspect of the solution. Enterprises should be able to integrate a user-friendly interface's file sync and share solution with existing systems like Microsoft Active Directory, and support multiple protocols, industry standards and applications.

6. Scalability
If implemented correctly, file sync and share solutions are very easy to use, which encourages users to store a lot of data very quickly. Enterprises should respond to this by being prepared to increase the quota per user. This infrastructure should be readily scalable with a huge expandable capacity (from a few terabytes, for instance, up to petabytes if necessary).

7. Data optimization
A file sync and share deals with an enormous volume of data, such as files, database content and emails from hundreds of BYOD devices. The optimal file sync and share must provide data optimization features like compression and single-instancing. This will help optimize the storage and improve return on investment.

8. Availability
Employees want to keep emails and documents at their fingertips for whenever they meet with customers or discuss proposals with partners. That's one of the key reasons why BYOD has become such an important tool. Even a single minute of downtime can affect their productivity, and by logical extension the profitability of your entire business. Demanding at least 99.999% availability for file sync and share is vital to ensuring business continuity.

9. Self-protecting storage
Enterprises need to think about all the hidden costs associated with data growth, such as backup costs. Employees will expect their data to be protected by IT, but backing up such massive amounts of data can be very expensive and complex. Enterprises can respond to this challenge by equipping their file sync and share solutions with self-protecting storage in which data is protected without backup.

10. Compliance assurance
Most employees don't have much IT knowledge and don't understand the potential dangers they're putting their companies in by using consumer-class file-sharing platforms that are beyond the control of their IT departments. A reliable file sync an share solution compensates for this lack of awareness through data integrity and compliance features that enable seamless collaboration and file-sharing, without compromising corporate and legal policies regarding data security.

If the enterprise has no enterprise file sync and share solution in place, the employees will often turn to free, third-party platforms and applications, many of which pose a serious threat to their business. Without it, there's no way for IT department to police the use of these tools, which means it cannot protect the company's data once it's outside the four walls of the office.

Deploying a reliable file sync and share solution is the only way to ensure the security and compliance of a highly productive mobile workforce.