Hot Topics in Security: BYOD, Human weak link & BYOD again

#ENISA #BYOD risk report published today (-1)

Workplace IT? You got to love it! Last week ENISA published a detailed report covering the risks associated with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend to see opportunities and risks about applying the practice.

Using own computers, phones, social networks and smart devices is the way to go in this modern age and it brings plenty of positives for work, but also bring risks. That’s the message from the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) in its latest report, Consumerisation of IR: Top Risks and opportunities.

This blog is getting a bit of déjà vu. Haven’t we been here before?

This is a topic that keeps rearing its ugly head. As it’s rather new (and exciting), everyone needs to understand the ‘opportunities and risks’ and more importantly, how to make money and protect business from awful cyber-attacks.

This ‘exclusively’ discovers that the opportunities are:

-       Employer and staff flexibility on hours and work locations

-       Savings through lower infrastructure costs

-       Increased productivity and staff satisfaction through developing their own skills

-       Lower infrastructure costs from moving to flexible IT solutions, such as cloud computing

And the risks:

-       Confidential information being lost, stolen or made public, whether through poor IT security on personal devices, or through the theft of mobile devices or computers

-       Potential issues over data ownership, unauthorised sharing, and legal governance over devices, programs and content

-       Increased opportunities for cyber-criminals to target corporate data

You heard it here first (well, kind of).

Human weak link…Again (-1)

A very, very, very interesting blog post caused quite the stir on twitter the other day suggesting that humans are the weak link. For what, you ask?

Well, as this a business blog, currently looking at security, you can pretty much guess?

The Cyber Threat Submit in Dublin was attended by many and one of the key themes to come from it was ‘Humans: The weakest link in cyber security’.

There was a presentation by Mark Johnson, Chairman of The Risk Management Group, detailing the massive introduction of technologies in every environment that must take care of the human factor under the security perspective. Very interesting stuff.

In many cases wrong behaviours of users, the failure to comply with security policies and leak of awareness on the cyber threats that could start target a systems representing main factors that could expose overall integrity of an IT solution.

This blog told you: interesting stuff. 

Social Media and mobile devices all conspire to make life more complicated, or do they? This blog will let you know on Thursday. 

Security for BYOD (0)

Back on to our favourite topic, again. From the first ‘Hot Topic’ about opportunities and risks, this one’s more about security and what do you need to know about security.

What do you need to know?

-       New devices bring increased cost of administration, risk of data loss and reputation damage if they aren’t managed correctly

-       When Malware goes mobile, data will need to be protected

-       Mobile device management needs to be introduced to get on top of such issues

You may feel that this blog is barking on continuously about security for BYOD, but it is something that is always being brought up.

Helpful guides are available here, here, here, and because we’re all about self-publicising, make sure you read this one.

What do you think of these ‘Hot Topics’? Let us know. Please. We have twitter and everything.