Giving workers access to business data on their personal devices could risk it falling into the wrong hands.
By the end of 2014, Wi-Fi on the tube should be near-universal. Last month, Transport for London announced all but four stations will be getting coverage, meaning mobile users will be able to connect to the internet from almost anywhere in the capital.
You don’t need to be a hardcore advocate of remote working to realise this’ll bring a raft of benefits to the city’s businesses, allowing employees to check their emails or review documents as they commute, travel between premises and head to and from meetings with clients.
However, as practices like these become more ubiquitous, so too do the problems that arise when mobile devices end up letting business data fall into the wrong hands. Earlier this week, security vendor McAfee released figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request to Transport for London that showed almost 16,000 mobile phones have been lost on the tube this year.
What’s more, only around 2,000 of these handsets have been returned to their owners, meaning tube travellers tend to write off their losses rather than simply go to the lost property office. And as these figures only cover devices that were turned in, it’s possible any number of smartphones were lost on the Underground and ended up in the hands of opportunistic thieves instead – people who might be able to profit from any sensitive information the owner failed to protect.
McAfee also learned more than 1,000 tablets and laptops were handed in too, so it’s not just smaller devices commuters are prone to misplacing.
So how can organisations make sure that when devices are lost in public places – which seems inevitable, based on these figures – the business data on them isn’t compromised?
Dajon’s cloud and enterprise solutions offer some answers. Our electronic document management system encrypts all traffic, meaning only authenticated users can look at your business records. Meanwhile, our Online Portal offers a secure alternative to email.
If your organisation is looking to make remote working safer, why not get in touch with us today?