Why You Need to Archive Email in a BYOD Workplace
Many organizations are fully and enthusiastically embracing the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend. In today’s world dominated by portable computers, tablets and smartphones, the advantages are obvious: employees from all industries feel more comfortable working on their own, familiar devices and the whole idea offers unparalleled convenience. So what’s the problem with responding to a few business emails from your personal computer while you’re at home or texting your colleagues about the latest financial report from your own phone?
The use of personal devices has become the norm
The results of a recent Cisco survey show that 95% of companies allow the use of personal devices in the workplace. The “Impact of BYOD on Education” survey also returned alarming results ‒ 52% of schools integrate personal devices into classroom experience, while 27% allow open access to their school network despite going against network security best practices.
The benefits are manifold and clear, but there are also numerous concerns regarding the security of these devices. Bringing in new devices into your network could increase the risk of data leakage, especially via email. Moreover, you might go on a delete spree while cleaning your inbox and unwittingly delete a thread, a post or a text message that could be considered important evidence in case of eDiscovery. Here’s an overview of BOYD challenges and how email archiving can help:
Increased storage
With BYOD, especially with smartphones, there is often increased email communication. The workday is more likely to start earlier in the morning and run late into the evening as employees check and respond to emails on their phones, especially during commute. This means your email server needs more storage to cope with the increased volume of communication. Your email archive can relieve your email server of this increased pressure, storing everything that passes through your email server from all these devices.
Security
One of the main risks with Bring Your Own Device is the lack of security and the risk of theft. If you are a hospital that retains a lot of personal and valuable health information that might be of interest to hackers and cyber criminals, your IT department is already making a tremendous effort to ensure your network. BYOD complicates the picture and entails additional risks. Employees are often blissfully unaware of their risky behavior. They have no idea that accessing an unknown, unsecured network with the same device they use to access the company’s network can expose the device to attacks and data theft. A good BYOD policy and the implementation of email archiving provides you with the added security of knowing your emails are backed up no matter what happens.
Access
Your email archive is an independent email storage solution, separate from your devices. You maintain access to your archive no matter what machine you choose to access it from. This means that if any devices are replaced through failure or upgrade, you don’t lose access to the emails. This also means that employees with multiple devices have access to all their emails at any time.
Compliance & eDiscovery
No matter how convenient it is for staff members to use their personal devices at work, managing those devices creates complex challenges for IT and compliance departments. Without email archiving, it would be impossible to capture, store and make this content searchable in order to meet various federal, state and industry regulations, as well as respond to legal requests.
A potential solution would be for your employees to create a dual persona. This form of mobile application management separates user’s corporate and personal data, which allows organizations to have control and archive an employee’s digital communication without infringing on their right to privacy. On the other hand, if your staff use corporate-issued mobile devices, they should be aware that they are expected to use them exclusively for official communication and that their online activities could be monitored and archived.
Originally published at jatheon.com on November 20, 2017.
