How to keep your business smartphone secured in just 5 minutes!

We will start this article by asking you these questions: 

• How much company data do you currently store on your smartphone? 
• How much company data do your employee’s hold on their smartphones? 

It goes without saying that we probably don’t take mobile device security as seriously as we should be. Despite the fact that more company data and business is being conducted on mobile devices than it had done before the pandemic. 

In our latest blog article, we will take you through the easiest things you can do to keep your company smartphones secure in just 5 minutes! 

We will start by asking you the following ‘do you have a transparent process if your CEO/MD has their device stolen or lost?’. 

If the answer to the above question is no then you should certainly read more to learn some of the best practices. 

Inbuilt Security 

This might be stating the obvious but most modern phones have basic security settings inbuilt. Such features like fingerprint/face ID come as standard, however some settings are often overlooked. 

Ensure that you have switched on the find my device and device encryption as standard. This will mean that if a mobile device falls into the wrong hands and the device doesn’t have encryption everything on that phone can be easily read through the use of even the most basic tools. 

Invest in mobile device management 

If you have found that your current managed IT provider hasn’t suggested this already, it is an essential for any business no matter what size the business is. By having mobile device management (MDM) in place will make it easier for any IT company to easier manage all your devices in your business. 

There are many features that come as standard with MDM but for the purposes of this article, we will focus on just a few of the most important ones: 

Lost Mode: 

If a particular device is reported as lost or stolen, at the flick of a few buttons, it can be blocked, tracked and a message sent to the screen for recovery. 

Audit & Log: 

You will find that all everyday activities such as logging onto WIFI, the installed apps as well as an audit database of all IMEI/serial numbers are generated. 

Having this set of data at your fingertips is great from a regulatory point of view as well as the capability to manage devices day-to-day. 

Security Enforcement: 

By having MDM in place makes it much simpler for your business to enforce strict security policies on the device itself. 

To give you an example of this, you will be able to turn on features such as forcing users to use fingerprint ID or locking the phone if too many PIN attempts have been used to gain access. Better still, you will be able to encrypt the device with just one click. 

As outlined above, it is so important to have a MDM solution in place for your business or if you are unclear of what you already have in place then why not let Advantage undertake a comprehensive IT audit for your business. 

Lost and stolen devices? 

Imagine the worst-case scenario when it comes to your company mobile devices. Maybe your MD or CEO drops their phone in a taxi or loses it on the train. 

What do you do next? What does your IT company do? 

It goes without saying that it is better to be prepared for such a situation, so the most obvious suggestion to be made would be to have a transparent process of action if a device is lost or stolen. 

Please find a rough outline of what this could look like: 

Step 1: Make sure the phone is set to lost mode or better still completely wipe the device remotely using MDM. 

Step 2: Let the network provider know about the theft and tell them to get the sim card blocked. 

Step 3: Make sure that you have a replacement device to hand. 

Step 4: Ensure that you are implementing a backup process of mobile devices. 

Step 5: Complete a restore to the replacement device. 

Next Steps? 

The above process does make it look very easy, but how do you approach this and get started? Well our IT company provides fully managed services so you can focus on the things that matter to you, your business. Get in touch with our team of IT specialists today to discuss all the options that are available to your business. 

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