It is forecast that the number of smartphone users will grow by several hundred million in the next few years. By 2021, it is estimated that there will be a total of 3.8 billion smartphone users worldwide. Smartphones are beginning to act more like laptops every day.
As the popularity and accessibility of the smartphone continues to grow, more and more people will be taking their personal devices into the workplace. This is because our phones are our lifelines. They act as our navigator in the car, our alarms, our contact between our loved ones.
Using our smartphones in the workplace has been a highly contested issue since what feels like the dawn of time. Some companies have chosen to ban the use of smartphones completely, whereas some businesses have decided to embrace it.
With a lot of people doing at least some work from home this year, this has been increasingly harder to police. In fact, the use of smartphones and other personal devices such as laptops is often what has helped businesses to adapt to remote working, allowing constant communication and video calling.
However, there are many advantages and disadvantages to using your personal devices in the workplace. Here we will discuss whether it is okay to use your existing devices for business purposes.
The main issue is the security of information
When using your existing device for your work, there is the issue of security. When we use our devices, we operate on the assumption of trust. For example, we trust that everything our phone does is safe, and our phone trusts that we are who we say we are. The same can be said for other electronic devices such as laptops and computers.
It could be that when you are using these devices for work purposes, you need to access sensitive information. Therefore, it is important to completely ensure safety and security of your device. To do this, you can eliminate the need for trust.
Zero trust is not a technology, it is a model and you have got identity and access management which form part of zero trust. Once you have logged on everything may seem fine but this is basically the whole issue with the existing network security framework. You should not trust something because it has successfully authenticated itself onto your network, ‘it’s needs to be continuously assessed’ to ‘it needs to be continuously assessed’. After that everything should be fine.
Yes, it is okay to use your existing device for business purposes
As long as you take the necessary steps to ensure that all of your data and documents are safe and secure, you are good to go.
There is a lot of uncertainty about the future of our physical workplaces going into the new year. Whether you have fully gone back to work, still work remotely, or have a blended approach, we simply do not know what the new year will bring. Therefore, by embracing the use of personal devices at work, it allows you to put the necessary precautions in place, making data storage and browsing safer for your employees, contractors and clients.
