The security and management challenges brought on by the spread of private PCs, iPhones, iPads and the Android versions of 'smart' devices throughout the corporate world are increasing exponentially, says Martin May, regional director (Africa) of Enterasys Networks.
The BYOD (bring your own device) phenomenon is sweeping the globe. The number of employees who are willing to pay for and bring their own devices to work in order to improve their efficiency and performance levels is growing beyond all expectations.
Surveys show that many organisations, previously unconvinced about the productivity benefits of the use of these personal devices, are now deeply concerned about their violating long-held operational rules when connecting to the corporate network.
As the former concern is assuaged - thanks to the realisation that personal devices and applications often further the corporate goals - it's perhaps unsurprising that the most senior executives are now as guilty as rank-and-file staff members of turning a blind eye to established security guidelines, rendering obsolete the dusty volumes in which they're written.
So pervasive is the BYOD trend that many organisations have given in to the pressure and accepted their use. However, the more vigilant companies have instructed their IT departments to introduce new-era technology to formalise the linking of BYODs to the corporate network.
The IT departments' struggle to strike a balance between enabling productivity by allowing an ever-growing list of new devices, and maintaining appropriate levels of compliance and security - both within and outside the traditional network perimeter - has just begun.
The key questions are how efficient and effective are the management tools employed to oversee BYODs and what needs to be done to secure the network?
The answer lies in increasing the levels of intelligence of the corporate network infrastructure to the point where it is able to quickly and easily determine which end-users and what devices are on the network - and whether their users are in compliance with established policies both prior to connection, and after connection.
This is easier said than done as there is an increasing degree of reticence on the part of employees to give their IT department absolute control over their devices as they hold both private and business data.
Nevertheless, enterprise-wide visibility into the current status of all network devices (including BYODs), the end-points and end-users are required, as is a common management view of relevant information and events in context, together with the ability to automatically enforce predetermined policies.
In fact, policy compliance is at the top of the priority list of most organisations' secure network initiatives today. It is gaining momentum against the backdrop of the increasing diversity and complexity of the enterprise network environment in which a growing percentage of 'employees' linked to the network are either temporary contractors or mobile/remote users of BYODs.
What's more, organisations that support business partners and guests on their network are adding another 20% to the total end-user count that needs to be controlled and managed.
The challenge facing organisations today is to accept that new-generation technology is fundamental to network authentication and identity-based network access control (NAC).
To achieve peace of mind, they must deal with vendors capable of not only recognising the business advantages presented by increasingly sophisticated BYODs, but able to provide NAC through policies that include unified protection for the wired and wireless edge of heterogeneous infrastructures, including advanced guest services.
This functionality must be deeply integrated into the networking workflows and embrace appropriate policy options for control, virtualisation flexibility, as well as 'anytime, anywhere' management.
There are undoubtedly many opportunities ahead for the further development of NAC solutions and technologies. These include more deployment modes, deeper integration with IT and security management systems, and enhanced application control to handle device proliferation.
In this light, more device-type granularity for the management and security of corporate BYOD environments is urgently required in order for different levels of network access to be granted to managed and non-managed devices.
Already, IT departments are being called on to track, manage and secure a broad range of wireless phones and tablets on all the major mobile operating platforms.
Soon they will be required to be alerted if any BYOD is inappropriately used and, more importantly, tasked with the responsibility of remotely wiping any device clean of sensitive data if it falls into the wrong hands.
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