Common Mobile Device Management (MDM) Challenges and How to Solve Them

Whether you're using them to take calls on the go or send and receive important information while away from your desk, mobile devices are a growing part of every business's workflow and are part of the transition into a hyperconnected, technological future.

Mobile devices are more than just phones. This category includes phones, tablets, and even laptops. Any truly mobile device can be taken anywhere, so you should think about your MDM policies, whether or not you have company mobiles. If people access their emails on their personal phones, you should have an MDM policy.

The significant challenges that mobile devices bring to any business are incredibly common but need to be addressed anyway. If left to their own devices, some of these issues can turn into pretty major vulnerabilities. Here we'll explore some of these issues and how your business can get ahead of them.

Security and Compliance

By nature, mobile devices can be a risk for any company. This is because their main use is to take information outside of a workplace's system and infrastructure, which can potentially lead to a breach of important information.

The below security measures will help to make sure that mobile devices are safe:

• Restricted Access. Restrict important information behind biometrics or other forms of authentication.
• Mobile Device Management (MDM). Implement an MDM solution to make sure that all devices have the same security features.
• Compliance. Make sure that every employee is compliant with the rules and requirements set for mobile device use. Most MDM solutions will measure compliance and automatically block access if a device falls short.

Shadow IT & Mobile Application Management (MAM)

Shadow IT is a term used to describe an app or software that's unauthorised for use in your business but has been installed on a device. These applications can be a huge security issue, as they can act as a route to harmful software being installed on work devices.

MDM solutions can often blacklist non-essential applications to make sure that no malicious apps are installed onto devices that could be taken advantage of. After all, your company's mobile devices should only have work-essential apps on them.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

BYOD programs let employees use their own devices at work. While this can have productivity benefits, it also comes with a range of challenges of its own:

• Security Risks. Both with the device and the user, BYOD creates a lot of risk factors. Bad password management, operating system vulnerabilities, and unauthorised applications are just a few of the issues that can come up from this.
• Compliance Issues. Even if the device is secure, BYOD has compliance issues. Due to the personal nature of the device, it's not unusual for BYOD employees to break security compliance due to having full control over their devices.
• Vulnerability to attacks and malware. Unlike a managed device issued by your company, a BYOD device can be vulnerable to external threats such as malware and other attacks due to their lower security.
• Lack of device management/control. It's both unreasonable and unrealistic to expect BYOD employees to give you full access and control of their personal devices, which means you'll never get the same level of security as on work-issued devices. For example, you may stipulate in a contract that if a BYOD employee leaves, they must wipe their device, but you're unable to enforce that policy like you can with a work-issued device.

However, implementing hard restrictions on your employees' personal devices with an MDM solution isn't a good thing either. Instead, using an MDM solution that can distinguish different rules between work-issued devices and BYOD devices is a great way to make sure this isn't an issue.

For example, Microsoft Intune lets you implement on-premises functionalities of your security network to your BYOD program, meaning you can implement security features throughout your company's BYOD setup without having to worry about over-restricting your employees' use of their devices.

Patch Management

Software can - and often will - have vulnerabilities that need to be patched by the developers. This is a vulnerability that isn't exactly in your control, but you must make sure patches and fixes are installed as soon as possible.

It can be easy to put off or forget to install patches throughout your business, but this is crucial to fix any vulnerabilities and exploits within the software you're using.

Remote monitoring and management tools or MDM solutions can be used to manage and deploy patches through your business, meaning you can easily stop these vulnerabilities from being exploited. If you don't do this, your organisation is at risk.

Lost & Stolen Devices

Mobile devices are incredibly vulnerable to being lost or stolen, which has a few large consequences for your business:

• Security. If a device is stolen while not being properly secured, it can become a breach point for your data.
• Cost. Replacing lost and stolen devices can get quite expensive, especially if it happens regularly.
• Management. Having to remotely remove a device from your organisation without having access to it can be incredibly difficult or impossible without using an MDM solution.

Network Access Control

Internal data breaches are becoming more and more common as the use of mobile devices in business infrastructure grows. Network access control helps to mitigate this and minimise the risk of an internal breach.

The most commonly used control technique is the principle of least privilege. This means making sure that people only have access to the data that they need to be able to work, restricting unrequired access through your business. For example, Paul in HR likely doesn't need access to the director's business plans, and Sarah in Marketing likely doesn't need access to the company's finance documents.

Privileged access management (PAM) will also help ensure that you can outline the restrictions and authorisations for each unique device on your network. This means that you can make sure that only devices that are authorised to access said data can access it, instantly blocking other connection attempts.

How we can help

Mobile devices can create some of the worst vulnerabilities and challenges for modern businesses. Ensuring that your organisation is prepared and equipped to deal with these challenges will save significant amounts of time and mitigate stress and strain on your business's resources and IT infrastructure for the long term.

By implementing the security and management solutions that are necessary for your network, and making sure the importance of compliance is emphasised throughout your team, the struggles and challenges of using mobile devices in your business will be greatly reduced.

If you're looking for help to improve your company's security posture, book a call with us and see how we can help!