Helping Your Staff Work More Productively With Mobile Computing

Mobile computing technology allows company employees to work as productively from home or hotels as they can from the office, but the face of computing technology is changing. Employees no longer want to be tied to using company laptops when they have a PC at home. What’s more, Smartphones and tablets have now become as ubiquitous as the traditional mobile phone ever was, providing low cost computing for employees to access company information.

As a consequence, cost conscious business owners can now avoid the need to fund and manage mobile communications for their staff by establishing a “bring your own device” (BYOD) policy, and allowing employees to select their own mobile devices for work.

Maintaining Security For Mobile Working

Companies have been using simple VPN technology built into firewalls to provide mobile computing for laptop users for a number of years, but as the range of devices that companies want to be able to support for remote working expands, different approaches need to be adopted to reflect the degree of trust that you place in the device connecting in to ensure that your IT systems are not exposed to an internet hack or security breach. You may have full control over software that is installed on company laptops, but this is not going to be the case if you allow employees to use their own PC’s or tablets.

• Laptops – Company laptops generally need full access to your company network. Nonetheless, if an “infected” laptop logs into the network, malware can be spread through your network causing your systems to crash. Laptops should therefore be screened before connection to your network to ensure that they have no unauthorised applications / malware installed. Screening for critical Windows patches and up-to-date antivirus can either be performed in the office using Network Access Control (NAC) software which is built in to the endpoint security software of the major security companies, or using VPN Gateways for remote users which will only permit access to your company network once the device connecting has been certified as “clean”.

• Home PC’s – Even though you have no control over software installed on your employees’ home PC’s, it is still possible to allow them to access your internal systems securely providing you restrict the applications that they have access to on your network using a VPN Gateway which can selectively permit access to your network while maintaining a degree of separation to prevent malware infection. In this way, it is possible to provide secure access to email and file shares from any device. You can also provide secure access to other business applications via Windows Terminal Server / Citrix providing your employees had administrator access to the PC being used to connect in. The VPN Gateway can even provision the appropriate “thin client” to the home user’s PC without them having to install the software locally.

• Smartphones / Tablets - Apps designed to run on smartphone operating systems undergo stringent review before being published on Google Play or the Apple AppStore. Device interrogation is therefore less critical for a tablet or Smartphone than for a laptop and in practice it is difficult to control apps installed on tablets or Smartphones. It is quite straightforward to provide access to corporate email and files on file shares from mobile devices, and access to line of business applications can be provided via a web browser. Mobile Device Management software should however be considered to ensure that password / PIN security is enforced to prevent unauthorised access to the device (and thereby to your network), as well as to ensure that company data is erased in the event that the device is lost, or that an employee leaves your company.

The Impact Of Cloud Computing

In many ways, mobile working and cloud services go hand in hand. You can now access your company business applications from any internet connected device using either Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) applications or Hosted Desktop technology which allows you to access your existing business applications via a web browser. Mobile Computing support isn’t however the primary driver for adoption of cloud computing. The ability to run any business software application for your company without having to invest in hardware and skilled technicians to maintain it is cloud computing’s primary attraction, but mobile computing has been the trigger for a number of companies to take their first steps into the cloud.

Keeping Hackers Away

Once you allow your staff to work remotely or indeed move to cloud computing, you are reliant on passwords to prevent unauthorised users from accessing your company data. Unfortunately, static passwords can be compromised since they either get written down on sticky notes, or may be too simple and can be guessed. The way to protect against password theft is to employ two factor authentication using an App that is installed on the employees Smartphone, which allows you to generate a unique 6 digit password every time your staff log in. The downside of using two factor authentication is that your users need to generate the one-time-password as an extra process when logging in, but if your data is confidential or has commercial value, you may decide that this is a price worth paying.

Summary 

Technology is now available to provision secure remote access from any device that can connect to the Internet, although a little planning (and knowledge) is required to ensure that opening the doors to remote working doesn’t mean that you expose your company data to significant risk. If you would like to know more about IT support services and network security products available from Clearview Data Systems, please download our "Secure Remote Access" white paper, call us on 01707 255060, or email info@clearview.co.uk.

How To Manage Company Smartphones And Tablets

For 3 days after the release of the iPad Mini tablet, Apple were shipping a million units per day. Every Smartphone and tablet has Gigabytes of storage capacity, can connect to Twitter, webmail and online storage facilities such as Dropbox, and can provide access to your company’s email systems. What’s more, they will probably  end up being connected to your network sooner or later. It's a problem that business owners would rather avoid.

Is There A Mobile Device Security Problem?

There are some genuine security issues. An employee's lost smartphone can potentially result in data leakage of client data or company intellectual property, yet the cost savings that can be realised by letting your employees use their own smartphones and tablets to access their company email and work from home are compelling. You therefore need to take a view on the risk of a security breach caused by mobile devices and formulate their own policy for how they can be used in your business.

How Serious is the risk?

The risk associated with mobile devices will very much depend on the nature of your company's business. If you are an Independent Financial Adviser for example, then you should be encrypting client confidential information on laptops anyway to comply with FSA regulation, and the same level of protection should be afforded to tablet devices. In this respect, the iPad has the lead over Android tablets insofar as encryption is built into Apple iOS by design. Equally if you don’t operate in a regulated industry, but you may carry client confidential or company confidential information on your tablet device, I would argue that the iPad is a better choice for the same reason. You may not attract the wrath of a regulatory body if you leave an iPad with your latest product design or your clients’ latest management accounts on the train, but it could still severely damage your company’s profits or reputation.

Sensible Mobile Security 

Mobile Device Security products are available from the major security vendors as well as a number of smaller vendors that allow you to apply sensible precautions for mobile devices. You can for example:

• Enforce a password / PIN policy for smartphones that connect to your network.
• Report on Apps that are installed on your Smartphones and Tablets.
• Block devices that don’t provide encryption.
• Selectively wipe files and company emails in the event that the device is lost or stolen, or if the employee leaves the company.
• Set up a portal from which recommended Apps can be downloaded.

The cost of this software is relatively inexpensive, and it can be managed by a Managed Service Provider as part of a Managed IT Service if you don’t have the skills to manage the system within your company.

If you would like more information on our support services portfolio for small businesses, please visit our web site, download our Managed Services White Paper, or email us at info@clearview.co.uk.