BYOD Definition
Jul 27, 2023
What is BYOD?
A bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy enables employees to use personal devices to access corporate applications and data and do their jobs. Many organizations have adopted BYOD policies in recent years because they bring significant benefits for the organization and its employee. However, a BYOD program also introduces security risks if not properly designed and managed.
How Does BYOD Work?
In the past, most organizations provided company-owned devices to their employees for them to do their jobs. However, as businesses become more distributed, they have increasingly created BYOD policies. Reliance on contractors, support for remote work, and the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic all contributed to BYOD adoption.,
Under a BYOD program, an employee is typically required to sign an agreement in which the terms of the program are laid out. After doing so and complying with any relevant corporate policies, the employee is permitted to use personal devices for business.
The Benefits of BYOD
BYOD policies have grown increasingly popular over the years because they provide benefits to both an organization and its employees. Some of the most common benefits of BYOD include:
- Efficiency: BYOD policies allow employees to work from familiar devices. This eliminates the ramp-up time it takes for an employee to become familiar with their corporate computer and able to do their job effectively.
- Employee Satisfaction: The ability to work from personal devices is often a major selling point for employees. BYOD is more convenient because it decreases the number of devices that employees need to tote around and enables them to work from their preferred device.
- Lower Cost: If an organization provides its employees with company-owned devices, it needs to pay for those devices. BYOD policies can be more cost-effective because the employees purchase their own devices.
- Support for Remote Work: BYOD policies are a logical complement to remote and hybrid work policies. While working from home, employees can use personal devices rather than bringing a company-owned device home.
The Downsides of BYOD
However, BYOD policies also create operational and security challenges for an organization. These include:
- Insecure Devices: Personally-owned devices may not be configured as securely or updated as regularly as company-owned devices. This potentially leaves them open to exploitation.
- Reduced Control: The company doesn’t own the devices that it allows users to work from under BYOD policies. This makes it more difficult to mandate the use of certain security controls such as a company-owned antivirus.
- Increased IT Complexity: BYOD programs result in employees working from a wide range of devices. This makes IT support more difficult because IT technicians may need to troubleshoot issues specific to a certain device.
- Privacy Concerns: With BYOD, work is being performed on personally-owned devices. Comingling business and personal data and applications makes it difficult to implement good security monitoring for business data without violating employees’ privacy.
- Compliance Challenges: The use of personally owned devices may increase the difficulty of enforcing the use of certain security controls. This complicates an organization’s efforts to remain compliant with certain laws and regulations.
Managing BYOD Security Risks
Many of the security risks that BYOD poses to a company can be managed by implementing security best practices such as:
- Strong Authentication: Personally-owned devices that travel with their owners are more likely to be lost or stolen. Strong user authentication — including multi-factor authentication (MFA) — is important to verify the user’s identity before allowing them access to corporate applications and data.
- Network Access Control (NAC): NAC solutions validate that a device meets certain requirements before it is permitted access to the corporate network. For example, a NAC system may block access to any device that isn’t up-to-date on security updates.
- Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA): ZTNA solutions implement least privilege access controls for access to the corporate network and applications. Users are only able to see and access those resources that they need to do their jobs.
- Mobile Device Management (MDM): MDM solutions enable organizations to manage mobile devices. This helps them to ensure that devices are secure and protected against malicious mobile apps.
Conclusion
BYOD policies can provide significant benefits to companies and employees alike by enabling employees to work from personally-owned devices. However, these programs also carry significant security risks that should be managed as part of BYOD policies and security controls.
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AAA Cyber Security Definition Access Control List Definition Account Sharing Definition Active Directory Certificate Services Definition Active Directory Federation Services Definition Adaptive Authentication Definition Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Definition Adware Definition AiTM Definition Altcoins API Definition ARP Cache Poisoning Attack Definition Asymmetric Encryption Definition Attack Surface Analysis Definition Attack Vectors Definition Authentication Authentication Protocols Definition Automated Compliance Definition
Beaconing Definition Behavioral Biometrics Definition Biometric Authentication Definition Bitcoin Blockchain Blockchain Authentication Definition Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Definition Bot Definition Botnet Definition Brute Force Attack Definition BYOD Definition
CA Certs Definition Canary Cyber Security Definition Catfishing Definition Central Logging Definition Certificate Authority Definition Challenge handshake authentication protocol CHAP Authentication Definition CIA Triad Definition Cipher Definition Cipher Suite Definition Ciphertext Definition CIS Click Fraud Definition Cloud Data Security Definition Cloud Security Risks Definition Computer Viruses Definition Continuous Authentication Definition Corporate Account Takeover Definition Credential Stuffing Definition Cross-site Scripting Definition CRUD Definition Crypto Cryptographic Hash Definition Cryptojacking Definition Cyber insurance Cyber Kill Chain Definition Cybersecurity Cybersecurity Analytics Definition Cybersecurity Honeypot Definition Cyberwarfare Definition
Dark Web Definition Data Breach Definition Data Exfiltration Definition Data Integrity Definition Data Obfuscation Ddos Definition Deep Packet Inspection Definition Deep Web vs Dark Web Definition Demilitarized Zone / DMZ Network Definition Denial-of-Service (DoS) Definition DevOps Security Definition Dictionary Attacks Definition DID (Decentralized Identity) Diffie Hellman Algorithm Definition Digest Access Authentication Digital Forensics Definition Digital ID Digital Signature Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) Digital Signature Standard (DSS) Distributed Key DMARC Definition DNS Leak Protection Definition Domain Name Service (DNS) Definition Doxxed Definition DRM Definition
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) Definition Email Hijacking Definition Encryption Definition Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Definition Endpoint Management Definition Endpoint Security Definition Equifax Security Breach Ethereum Ethernet Switch Definition Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Method Definition Eye Authentication
Face Authentication Facial Recognition Definition Fake Hacking Definition Fault Tolerance Definition Federated Authentication Definition FIDO Alliance FIDO Biometrics FIDO Client Software SDK FIDO Cloud Authentication FIDO IoT Security FIDO Server FIDO U2F Authentication FIDO UAF Fido2 Definition Fileless Malware Definition Fingerprint Biometrics Definition Firewall Definition Firewall Rule Definition Firmware Definition Forensic Analysis Definition
Golden Ticket Attack Definition Google Authenticator Google Authenticator Definition Google Authenticator Push Notification
Hacking Definition Hacktivism Definition Hash Functions Definition Heap Spraying Definition HOTP Definition How Does a VPN Work Hybrid Cloud Definition Hyperscale Definition
IAM Definition ICMP Definition ID Ransomware Definition ID Ransomware Definition Howard Poston Identity Authentication Definition Identity Governance Identity Proofing Identity Verification Definition Identity-Based Encryption IDP Definition IKE Definition Incident Response Definition Ingress Vs. Egress Definition Insider Threat Definition Intrusion Detection System Definition IoT Edge Definition
Key Agreement vs. Key Exchange Definition Key Distribution Center Definition Key management Keylogging
Latency Definition Lateral Movement Meaning LDAP Definition Log Formats Definition Log Management Definition
Machine Learning Cyber Security Definition Magic Links Definition Malvertising Definition Malware Definition Man in the Middle (MITM) Attack MDM Protocol Definition MDR Definition Meterpreter Definition MFA Push Notification Mimikatz MITC Definition MITRE ATT&CK Framework Definition Mobile Authentication Definition MS-DOS Definition MSSP Meaning Multi-factor Authentication Definition
Network Edge Definition Network Security Definition Node NTLM Authentication NTLM Authentication Definition NTLM Definition
OAuth 2.0 Definition OAuth Definition OCSP Definition On-Path Attack Definition One-Factor Authentication Definition One-Time Password Definition Open banking OpenID Connect Flow Definition OPSEC Definition OTP Definition Out-of-band authentication
PAM Tools Definition Parse Logs Definition Passkeys Password Complexity Password Hashing Password Reuse Password Spraying Definition Passwordless Authentication Penetration Testing Definition Personally identifiable information (PII) PGP Definition Phishing Definition PKI Architecture Definition PKI Authentication Definition PKI Certificates Definition Port Scanning Definition Pretexting Definition Privileged Access Management Definition Protected health information (PHI) Proxy Server Definition PSD1 Definition PSD2 Definition Public Key Encryption Definition Push Authentication
RADIUS Protocol Definition Rainbow Table Random Number Generator Ransomware Red Team Remote Access Trojan Definition REST API Definition REST Protocols Definition Reverse Engineering Risk-Based Authentication Rootkit Definition
Salted Hash Definition SAML Definition SAML Handshake Definition SAML MFA SAML vs OAuth SASE Definition Scareware Definition SCIM Definition SCRAM Definition Security as a Service Security Keys Definition Security Mesh Security Tokens Definition Session Hijacking Definition Shellcode Shoulder Surfing Definition Sidejacking Definition SIEM Definition Single Sign-On Definition Single-Factor Authentication Site-to-Site VPN Smart Card Authentication SOAP Protocol Definition SOAP Secure Definition Social Engineering Software Patch Definition Spam Filter Spambot Spear Phishing Spoofing Definition Spoofing IP Address Spraying Attack Spyeye Definition Spyware SQL Injection SQRL Definition SSH Definition SSL Definition SSL Stripping Attack SSO Definition Stateful Firewall Definition Step-Up Authentication Stuxnet Symmetric Encryption Symmetric Encryption Symmetric Key Symmetric Key Cryptography Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption System Logging
Tailgating Attack Thin Client Definition Threat Actor Threat Hunting Threat Intelligence Threat Modeling Ticket-Granting Ticket (TGT) Definition Tiny Banker Trojan Tokenization Definition Tokenized Authentication TOTP Definition Traceroute Definition Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Definition Transparent Proxy Trickbot Trojan horse Trojan Virus Definition Trustless Two-factor authentication
U2F (Universal 2nd Factor) Definition UDP (User Datagram Protocol) UEBA (User and Entity Behavior Analytics) KZero Staff Unified Threat Management (UTM) URL Filtering
WAF Definition WAF vs Firewall WAN Aggregation WannaCry Wardriving Definition Watering Hole Attack Web3 What Is A Key Logger What Is An Exploit What Is Bricking What Is Caching What Is Ctap What Is Fido What is LDAP What Is Sandboxes What Is Snort What Is Soar What Is SSH What Is TGT White Hat Hacking Wi-Fi Snooping Wireless Networks Worm Virus Definition
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