BYOD raises overblown security concerns

For a long time, the policy of corporate-issued phones has been a mainstay. Now, more companies are implementing a bring your own device (BYOD) policy, but CIOs are worried over the security and networking concerns these initiatives create. Some IT professionals, however, are telling the industry to calm down.

CIO Magazine interviewed John Mensel, the director of security services at a 10-year-old IT consulting firm, to get answers about the reality of the security concerns brought up by BYOD policies and how IT departments are changing as a result.

IT security concerns are nothing new, according to Mensel, who points out that mobile devices are not as serious a threat to internal security as laptops are, which have been around for much longer. There are few ways better to steal data and introduce viruses into a company network than connecting a laptop directly over a VPN, Mensel pointed out.

Even with the addition of BYOD, IT departments are not going anywhere, according to Mensel. Even though the traditional roles of IT are becoming obsolete, new innovations in business communication are creating new avenues that need to be managed.

"Yeah, we're going to be getting out of the business of doing day-to-day desktop support," said Mensel. "But our business is going to turn into the business of providing people with interfaces that they can plug their devices into. In a traditional model, there's a desktop with a bunch of applications installed on it – all of which are configured by IT."

Businesses in Ohio looking to network a BYOD policy with a VoIP or unified communication system would be wise to partner with an IT consulting firm to ensure a complete solution.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.