Is Mobile Device Management Something You’ve Looked Over?
Consider the following scenario: a user comes to work, and they have a phone that isn’t managed by your organization. They decide to read their email on the device, acting as though it were their work laptop. Then, before you know it, malware has been installed on the company email servers. This is an example of mobile device management working to protect your organization, and everyone needs to have a form of mobile device management if they want to keep their information safe.
What Does Mobile Device Management do?
Mobile device management is a very important part of managing a company’s security – after all, you can’t manage something you don’t have access too. But what exactly does MDM do? Well, it controls almost everything on the device (phones, tablets, etc.):
– Applications
– Communications
– Encryption
– Passwords
It does this by enforcing compliance on all of your devices. And if you do find an issue, it’s able to remotely wipe your data at the administrator’s discretion. It is also responsible for tracking location, and other useful things.
Types of Mobile Device Management
In order for mobile device management to be successful, it has to have a relatively recent OS. That way, if you need to wipe the data from the phone, there’s a chance that your company can still use it afterward. So don’t depend on MDM if your employees want old phones. In addition, MDM doesn’t work on a limited number of devices – as long as the OS supports it, the phone is good to go.
Right now, there are three types of mobile device management:
– On-Device
– Cloud Based
– Hybrid (both cloud and on device)
An on-device approach is when the policies are stored on the device itself. This is a good thing to use if you only have a limited number of devices, but it won’t work if your business relies on a large number of devices managing BYOD. A cloud-based approach is when the information is managed in the cloud, and it’s very flexible when it comes to the number of devices you have. But it’s not very scalable in any way, which is why many companies choose to go with a hybrid approach that uses both cloud and on-device approaches.
And that’s pretty much the whole idea behind mobile device management! It doesn’t matter if your company has five employees using BYOD or thousands using company-issued laptops – MDM is the best way to ensure data security, and it’s something that any business should look into in today’s day in age.
So how do you find good mobile device management? Well, if your company uses Google Apps for Work, managed devices are important. For example, if a user has an unmanaged device, it’s possible that they won’t have access to email – all because you can’t use an unmanaged device with Google Apps for Work. And don’t worry if your company uses Microsoft Exchange, as nearly all mobile device management solutions are compatible with both systems.
