Since most IT organizations agree that BYOD is here to stay, and this data was corroborated in a recent Forrester poll, the best you can do is set policies and guidelines for issues regarding firewalls, virus protection, device service, data loss and emergency data recovery. (There’s a lot more to talk about from an HR standpoint, such as issues of reimbursement for all or part of the mobile device bills, who is allowed BYOD within the organization, and other questions… but we’ll leave that to other experts, since, here at 24 Hour Data, we know technology and data recovery.

Here are some of our tips for protecting mission critical company data stored on an employee’s mobile device, and what to do in the event of data loss.

1 – Set standards and mandates when it comes to virus protection. – While failed hard drives happen, most data loss occurs either through user error (such as accidental deletion of files) or corruption of data due to a virus, trojan or malware. If company data is stored on a mobile device, even if your company doesn’t own the device, you have a huge stake in protecting that data. Set minimum standards for virus protection and have your IT staff ensure employees are following those standards. While it’s technically not the job of your IT staff to tech employees’ personal mobile devices, it may be in your best interests to have your IT staff upload the proper anti-virus and security software. It will save money, time, headaches and prevent lost productivity in the future. 

2 – Set standards for passwords – Should corporate data reside inside a separate firewall witheter  separate password protection? Should you maintain policies regarding what apps, files and data can be stored on employee-owned mobile devices? What happens if a device is lost or stolen? These are all questions for your IT staff, HR department and operational offers to consider. At best, make sure employees know best practices for password protection and change the password on their mobile device frequently. 

3 – Determine who is responsible for providing tech support and/or emergency data recovery services in the event an employee-owned mobile device fails. – What happens when an employee-owned iPhone, iPad, smartphone or tablet fails or requires service? Who is responsible? You may prefer having your own IT staff tech equipment, perhaps relying on a data recovery service partner if your IT staff gets in over its head with do-it-yourself data recovery. But that eliminates one of the benefits of BYOD: Your IT staff is not responsible for the equipment. Nevertheless, it’s your important company data at stake. 

24 Hour Data can recover all the files from a device, or only select files and apps, so we can retrieve your mission critical data, keeping it 100 % confidential, and leave the employee’s personal files alone. Or we can retrieve all the data at a fair price. Your employee will thank you for saving his vacation memories and personal data, while you can relax knowing your corporate data is safe once again.