Based on a number of tech and security trends for 2014 lists, BYOD isn’t going away in 2014. But, it might be changing. If it’s sticking around, it’s going to have to evolve. Currently, 60% of businesses allow employees to use their own devices to connect to company networks, and those numbers are likely to increase.
Gartner is always looking ahead. Their predictions for BYOD in 2018 give us a glimpse into the future of BYOD. Gartner suggests we’ll be dealing with:
- BYO hardware and software
- Increasingly unstable vendors
- Multiple devices per user
- Everything mobile
- Need to qualify more than one hardware vendor
- Focus on service and support over hardware
- Diversity in everything tech
From where BYOD stands now, it’s not hard to imagine that these predictions may be right. If they are, then companies will need to be thinking about tools for storing, sharing, downloading and collaborating on data. Network security will need to be put in place and evaluated regularly to keep up with changes.
BYOD is already causing disruption and security challenges. Gartner also predicts that in 2014, employee-owned devices will be compromised with malware at a rate more than double that of corporate devices. The time to put security measures in place is now. Create policies, educate employees, and evaluate tools and encryption options. Without a security solid plan in place now, keeping up with the future of BYOD will be that much more difficult.
BYOD has been changing the security industry since the first employees started using a smartphone incognito to increase productivity. Changes continue to happen quickly that affect how data is managed, stored, delivered and secured. Let’s use these predictions to get a jump start on putting security measures in place to protect businesses from the 2018 BYOD security threats.
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