Is Your Business Mobile Solution Leaving You Vulnerable to Attack?

Business mobile plays a crucial role in many jobs today, with smartphones and tablets enabling companies to offer access to business apps and communications systems from anywhere.

But have you considered whether you’re on the right mobile network – one with the best security and tariffs for your business? And, crucially, do you know what you employees are up to on their mobiles?

Along with the improvements in productivity and flexibility that mobiles bring to organisations and employees comes a layer of risk. Mobiles are among the most susceptible devices to hacking, cybercrime and data leakage. And, for businesses, the stakes are higher than ever. With GDPR in place, companies that fail to adhere to data protection regulations face fines of up to four percent of turnover. Not to mention the damage a data leak can do to your brand’s reputation.

Let’s look in more detail at where your business is potentially vulnerable.

Here are five key causes of data leaks that business mobile users expose themselves to every day.

• Use of unsecured WiFi connections – Employees often hop on and off networks if they are working remotely or from home. This can lead to accidental disclosure of company data. Let’s face it: a mobile device is only as secure as the network through which it transmits data. Man-in-the-middle attacks can take place if someone maliciously intercepts the network, which can lead to data loss.
• Lost or stolen devices – If a device isn’t password protected or encrypted, you’re at greater risk of a breach of company data. According to Wandera, 43 percent of companies had at least one smartphone in their network without any lock screen security. And among users who did set up passwords or PINs on their devices, many opted to use the bare-minimum four-character code.
• Employees falling victim to a cyber-attack – A popular type of attack is the phishing scam. These events are more common with mobile devices and the increase in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) work environments. On mobile devices, personal and work email accounts are often accessed in tandem and, in these cases, the odds of a phishing attack being successful are higher. And, with AI and machine learning, cyber-attacks will become more sophisticated and harder for end-users to spot – for example, personal information will be gathered over time and used to create attack emails that look like they are from friends. Having the most up to date cyber-security in place to combat this is essential.
• Poor password management. Many of us are fed up with the number of passwords we need so often resort to using the same or very similar ones for business and personal accounts. We also know people often share their passwords amongst colleagues to facilitate working. Verizon found that weak or stolen passwords were to blame for more than 80 percent of hacking-related breaches in businesses.
• Erroneous data usage. Without the right guidance in place, employees can make ill-informed decisions about which apps can access their personal or corporate information, leaving them open to attack.

So, which of the above do you think your business is vulnerable to?

If you think about the number of possible exposure points that your business is at risk of from just one of your employees doing even one of the above activities, then multiply it by your entire mobile workforce the results can be scary to contemplate.

Effective Management of Your Mobile Fleet and Securing Devices

As the number of business mobile phones within your organisation expands, so the risks grow. But, with proper management, your business mobile devices needn’t become a gaping security hole.

Making a business mobile fleet effective requires central control over all devices to implement policies and protect and manage usage. It’s also essential to use a mobile security solution to identify and monitor for potential threats and ensure that you are fully compliant.

Elite’s business mobile solutions provide a multi-layered device management solution. Limits can be set on data usage, bars can be placed on certain websites, and company-wide policies can be implemented to restrict the use of devices to their intended purpose. All this helps guard against potential misuse and prevents usage outside of your tariff bundle.

Needs vary from business to business. This is why we analyse your device and security requirements to create a bespoke business mobile plan. We will then help you to implement this in the wider organisation, ensuring buy-in from employees and stakeholders and providing full training where required.

A Network and Mobile Devices to Match Your Needs

As we have premier level relationships with all the UK’s leading mobile networks, we can offer the most competitive business mobile tariffs available and will work closely with you to provide impartial advice on the best network for your needs. We can also give independent advice on the best hardware and mobile devises to purchase, as well as the business apps available to enhance working life.

Automating with M2M

We also offer M2M (Machine to Machine) solutions that eliminate human error and maximize time and cost savings by allowing you to connect any machine to another machine using a mobile SIM, so automating tasks that used to be done manually.

Elite Group is the UK’s leading unified communications provider. We supply businesses with a range of next generation communication technologies – including industry-leading business mobile solutions.