Modern businesses are facing biggest cyber security threats and data breaches. The use of personal mobile devices in the business environment has also grown. The need for a business is to confidentially transmit data between different endpoints without compromising privacy, security, and compliance.
The major concern is for private businesses that confidential information is at employees fingertips means on their phones. Thus protecting this information on the smartphone for business requires smart security tips. Employees who are not aware using a smartphone securely in a business environment can cost businesses financial lost.
It was revealed via a research conducted by Lookout and Ponemon Institute that
67% of organizations had a data breach as a result of employees using their mobile phones to access the company’s data.
To ensure that corporate data is safe and secure on the personal device of employees, business security tips for smartphone tend to be essential. Hackers and data snoopers also target personal data of the employees on the phone. Till the time you don’t set up some essential security layers, your smartphone is extremely vulnerable to a hack and breach.
Security tips for business smartphones are listed in below that will help you protect business data.
Set up Remote Wipe and Location Options
Smartphones are portable that is why employees prefer them for work also. Yet, they can be easily lost or stolen. Security of smartphones is at risk due to which setting up a remote wipe and location options become important.
Installing tracking apps can discover your phone in case it gets lost or stolen. Such apps offer to wipe sensitive information remotely. If your phone ends up in hands of an evil guy, then at least such apps assure removal of personal data and business information from the phones.
iOS and Android both have an option for locating the device in case you misplace it or lost it. They can also wipe the information if your gadget gets stolen so that no one can access the data. The iPhone users can take help of Find My Phone.
Follow the given steps to enable that option:
- Go to Settings
- Look for iCloud
- Turn on ‘Find My Phone’
Users of Android can access Android Device Manager. For enabling tracking by this Manager,
For Andorid
- Launch the app
- Link it to Google account
- Follow the directions that it provides
Keep your system updated
Updating your smartphone with the recent versions is important and if you use a single phone for your work and personal information then it becomes necessary. Every device launches new software updates in regular intervals.
Downloading these software updates for your smartphone is what you have to do. Most of us show laziness in downloading these updates yet they are essential because they have the latest security updates. These updates also ensure that your device is performing at an optimal level.
Secure your network
Internet Service Providers (ISPs), hackers, scammers, and advertisers all are interested in your data. Be it personal or business data, it is being monitored and might get compromised. In case you have no idea about securing your network then you are really unfortunate.
Data present on PC or smartphone can be read by anyone if it is not encrypted. Secure your network by using a VPN as all your communications take place on the mobile device. Best smartphone security tip for businesses is to encrypt data through a VPN. It will secure your data and improve smartphone privacy.
It will let you surf the internet with freedom excluding any blocking. A VPN hides your online activities and make you anonymous. It will provide security to business data by encrypting it into an unreadable form. So you won’t have to worry about your data being scammed or used.
Only install applications (apps) from trusted sources
A business person who has data on a smartphone, it is important that he should only shop from legitimate app stores such as Google Play store, Apple iTunes and Microsoft’s Store. You must research the app and about its publishers. Avoid installing apps from non-market applications.
On the other hand, it is important that you also install VPN app but from trusted sources. Android users drive to your device to the Settings menu and de-select the “unknown sources” option. Before you click on the ‘install’ option just have a thorough look at the reviews and ratings of the particular app you are about to download.
If the App reviews are satisfying enough then read the app’s privacy policy. For instance, you are about to download a game that requires access to your contacts. Then you must think before downloading it that is why a game would need to access your contacts. If this gets you suspicious or doubtful then resist downloading the app.
Secure your Wi-Fi network
Most of the people including business employees might access sensitive information over a public Wi-Fi network but the security of Wi-Fi network is ignored completely. The favorite method of hackers and scammers for hacking is when a person accesses sensitive information across an insecure network.
The information sent using public Wi-Fi can be accessed by anybody who knows the technique of viewing it. They can hack your system and data snoopers may steal your data. Not only public Wi-Fi but if your home internet connection uses the weak password then intrusion can occur.
Use a VPN app for business security on a smartphone. It will provide highest encryption possible that will encrypt your internet traffic and data. A VPN will also protect you on open as well as home network. Besides, make your home Wi-Fi password strong so that no one can pass its authentication.
Beware of phishing
The increased use of smartphones is no doubt helpful, yet nothing comes alone it brings with itself potential risks. Most of the times due to the weak knowledge of employees, the business data suffers losses. Employees might click on links in emails called phishing emails that mostly lead to dangerous websites.
For business smartphone security, it is important that you first check the legitimacy of the web address before clicking it. Avoid clicking on suspicious and short links if you have not requested. The nasty looking links in the email or text messages are usually a scam to trap you into revealing personal data on a smartphone.
Cyber attackers use social engineering techniques to create such links that are either to withdraw money from you, steal your identity and business data or credit card accounts. Here you have to be vigilant because even sophisticated antivirus might fail to protect you from such phishing attacks.
Do not share location
Location tracking raises a lot of privacy concerns such as anyone can snoop into your whereabouts. According to the security experts, it is nearly impossible to prevent location tracking. There are numerous ways by which third parties are able to track no matter on which location, including the metadata transmitted from telecommunications and data, logged on your phone.
The head of the security strategy for SentineIOne (a computer security company) Jeremiah Grossman said, “For the vast majority of people and the vast majority of circumstances, the benefits they get from sharing their whereabouts way exceed the risks that might be out there,”
For the people who use their smartphones for business, security becomes a big concern. Sharing location of yours from smartphone may help law enforcement agencies to monitor your movements, give hackers a chance to sneak in and allow advertisers to track you. If you are not using a VPN, you sharing your location won’t bring anything good to you.
If location tracking is used carelessly then it may hurt your privacy. For safety, you must avoid sharing location publicly or turn off location tracking. Google allows you to share your location on social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook. In order to protect your smartphone business data for security, only send your location to the intended recipient.
Encrypt Sensitive Data
The best smartphone security tip for a business employee who works with any kind of sensitive data is to safeguard the data by encrypting it. Such as Full disk encryption for Windows PCs ensures that your data won’t be compromised. Similar kind of encryption is now available for smartphone users.
For Android users, Google explains encryption as:
Full disk encryption is the process of encoding all user data on an Android device using an encrypted key. Once a device is encrypted, all user-created data is automatically encrypted before committing it to disk and all reads automatically decrypt data before returning it to the calling process.
If you are an owner of a business website then without delay secure your site with HTTPs so that no one can access data between the browser and the web server. All the data gets encrypted when you access a site with HTTPs. For users of a smartphone, it is important that you only visit sites that are secured with SSL certificate.
Conclusion
Advertisers, cellular providers, government, hackers are tracking your online activities. Also, data-stealing nasty apps and other automated threats are not behind in risking online security and privacy of your device.
Smartphones contain plenty of sensitive information. Losing your phone or its stealing can result in the loss of confidential work data. Thus smartphone security tips for business mentioned in this article will help you to build good security on the gadget.