How to solve common mobile device management challenges

What are common business mobile device management challenges and how does your business solve them.

Whether it is simply to take calls on the go or to send and receive important information while away from the desk — and are part of the transition into the hyperconnected, technological future.

They are powerful and present significant challenges for any business. These challenges are incredibly common but need to be addressed — some may become high-level vulnerabilities if left unchecked.

In this article, we will explore the issues of mobile device management — and explain how your organisation can solve these challenges with ease.

Security & Compliance 

Mobile devices are a risk for any company. Their inherent use takes them outside the workspace and with that outside of your organisation’s systems + infrastructure —  potentially leading to a breach of important information.

This is why it is crucial to develop thorough security measures to ensure that mobile devices are safe:

• Restricted access: Restrict important information behind biometrics or other forms of authentication.
  
• Mobile Device Management (MDM): Implement Mobile Device management (MDM) software to ensure that all devices have the same security features.
  
• Compliance: Ensure that each employee understands and is compliant with the rules and requirements set for mobile device use.
  

Shadow IT & Mobile Application Management  

Shadow IT is the use of an application or software that is unauthorised for use within your organisation that has been installed on a device. This can be a major security issue for any company as it ushers in the ability to install harmful software onto work devices.

An MDM solution will blacklist non-essential applications to ensure that no malicious software is installed onto devices that could be vulnerable to your organisation. Your organisation’s mobile devices should only have work-essential apps on them.

Bring Your Own Device 

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs allow employees to use their own devices at work. While this has productivity benefits, it also comes with a host of challenges of its own:

• Security Risks: Both with the device and the user, BYOD creates many risk factors. Bad password management, operating system vulnerabilities, and unauthorised applications are just some of the issues that can arise from a poorly managed BOYD policy.
  
• Compliance Issues: Even if the device is secure, BYOD has compliance issues. Due to the personal nature of the device it is not unusual for BYOD employees to break security compliance due to having control over their own devices.
  
• Vulnerability to attacks and malware: Unlike a managed device issued by your organisation, BYOD devices can be vulnerable to external threats such as malware and other attacks.
  
• Lack of device management/control: It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect BYOD employees to give you full control of their personal devices, which means that you will never get the same level of security as on work-issued devices.
  

Utilising an MDM solution that can distinguish different rules between work-issued devices and BYOD devices is a fantastic way to mitigate threats.

Microsoft Intune allows you to implement the on-premise functionalities of your security network to your BYOD program, meaning that you can implement security features throughout your company’s BYOD setup without having to worry about over-restricting your employees’ use of their devices.

Patch Management 

Software can — and often will — have vulnerabilities that need to be patched by the developers. This is a vulnerability that is not exactly in your control, but it is vital that you ensure to install patches and fixes as soon as they become available.

It can be easy to delay or forget to install patches throughout your organisation, but this is crucial to patch-up any vulnerabilities and exploits within the software that you are using. 

Using MDM software to manage and deploy patches throughout your organisation means that you can easily stop powerful vulnerabilities from being exploited. You risk putting your organisation at risk if you do not keep on top of this.

Lost & Stolen Devices  

Mobile devices are incredibly vulnerable to being misplaced or stolen, which has a few consequences for your organisation:

• Security: If a device is stolen while not being properly secured, it can cause a security vulnerability and become a breach point for your data.
  
• Cost: Replacing stolen and lost devices can get quite expensive, especially if it is a regular occurrence.
  
• Management: Having to remotely remove a device from your organisation without having access to it can be a pain when using some MDM solutions.
  

Network Access Control 

Internal data breaches are becoming more and more common with the implementation of mobile devices into business infrastructure. Network access control will mitigate this and minimise the risk of an internal breach.

The most used control technique is the principle of least privilege (PoLP). This ensures people only have access to the data that they need to be able to work, restricting unrequired access throughout your organisation, and making data available only to those who need it. 

Privileged access management (PAM) will also help ensure that you can outline the restrictions and authorisations for each unique device on your network. This means that only the devices that are authorised to access said data can access it, instantaneously blocking other connections.

How We Can Help? 

Mobile devices can create some of the worst vulnerabilities and challenges for modern businesses. Ensuring that your organisation is prepared and equipped to deal with these challenges will save significant amounts of time and mitigate stress and strain on your business’s resources and IT infrastructure in the long term.

Improve your organisations mobile device security and compliance with our new managed mobile device management solution.