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Why Everyone Gets It Wrong About BYOD
snydeq writes "Brian Katz offers a simple take on the buzz around BYOD in business organizations these days: 'BYOD is only an issue because people refuse to realize that it's just about ownership — nothing more and nothing less.' A 'hidden issue' hiding in plain view, BYOD's ownership issue boils down to money and control. 'BYOD is pretty clear: It's bringing your own device. It isn't the company's device or your best friend's device. It's your device, and you own it. Because you own the device, you have certain rights to what is on the device and what you can do with the device. This is the crux of every issue that comes with BYOD programs.'"
BYOD means you can no longer trust your own network because you no longer have the same level of control over the devices on it. And if you do not trust your own network, you need to increase your security costs substantially and provide other resources that you would otherwise not need to offer. So while you're saving around $1000 per year per user on hardware, you're spending more on licensing for NAC and VDI/RDP/ICA. You also need to amp up the local tier1/2 support because now without standards they're going to be spending more time dealing with more types of machines. Any gains made by standardization will be utterly destroyed.
BYOD is a short sighted, stupid idea thought up by someone who sure as hell has no experience with I/T support.
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No, BYOD means that IT still has no real control over the devices on the network, but now has to stop pretending that they ever did.
In an engineering environment, many of the locked-down MSWindows systems that are deployed are wiped by the users to install Linux. Other systems may be mostly locked down, but users will run their own systems in virtual machines. The network may have a nice secure firewall, but lots of users set up backdoors through their home VPN connections to bypass the tight web filters.
And then there are the Chinese hackers who have infiltrated the network.
Any company that relies on controlling the systems on their network for security is practicing security through imagination. A real security model has to assume that there will be issues at every level. BYOD may help force companies to recognize the need for comprehensive security, but it doesn't create the need.
Having done I.T. for over 25 years and counting now, I'm *really* getting fed up with all the authoritarian sysadmin wanna-be's who impose all sorts of rules on what people CAN'T do on a network, instead of ENABLING people to do more with the resources available.
You want an AppleTV on the corporate network (most likely for the purpose of easily projecting things onto a conference room television instead of physically connecting a video cable between the PC and the TV)? Great! Why the hell NOT allow it? It's pretty much the same guts inside as an iPod touch, except with a locked-down version of iOS. Not exactly anything I'd be concerned about. (If your main objection is something along the lines of not liking the fact it lets people stream TV shows or music when that's not what they're hired to do? Guess what! It's not YOUR job or problem to concern yourself with that! Like the telephone on someone's desk, it's a TOOL. In I.T. you're paid to provide it and make sure it functions well. It's not YOUR problem to try to stop them from making personal calls instead of work-oriented ones. The person's direct supervisor can be concerned with all of that.)
As just one of the extreme examples .... my current boss just told me a story of his previous boss at a casino he did I.T. work for. The guy was SO intent on having 100% control and lockdown on things, he wouldn't even give the I.T. staff administrator rights to any of the boxes, except on an "as needed" basis. My boss was trying to install and configure SQL servers on a number of Microsoft servers, so each time he had to load the product, he was required to call or email and request admin access -- which was only granted JUST long enough to get the product installed! At least a couple times, this caused people to sit around and do absolutely nothing productive for the better part of a day, when he forgot they needed admin rights back for a project they were assigned to do and HE wasn't available to give it to them.
At the end of the day, when you work in I.T, or network/systems administration, it's your job to construct and maintain a computer environment that everyone finds as productive as possible. Yes, "computer security" has value ... but at the end of the day, it's just about having a documented process in place to show you tried/are trying. It's not actually some sort of goal you can achieve, and the more you try, the more difficult you make it for everyone to just USE the tools they're given.
I think this is why people make BYOD into a FAR bigger deal than it needs to be. Again, the cellphones and mobile devices are simply tools people can use to do their jobs. If you TRUST an employee enough to give them access to your digital information in the first place, then who really cares if your company has the legal right to wipe the device on demand or not? That's like issuing them a pad of paper and pencil and saying, "If you're terminated or quit, you must return the pad of paper to us." Never mind the person might have already torn out the pages where he or she scribbled down the proprietary information you were trying to protect. (Anyone with a smartphone could synchronize the contents to some personal device, off of the company-owned one, so they still possess the data you wished to wipe.)
What protects your DATA is the legal stuff.... non-compete clauses or signed agreements and documents promising you won't do certain things with the info. The BYOD or the company owned devices are just tools that can temporarily hold some of the data for people. Who buys the device is little more than a detail for accounting -- and shouldn't even matter much from the I.T. perspective.