Businesses are leaning increasingly on mobile devices — laptops, tablets, and smartphones — to ensure their employees can stay productive and connected no matter where they are. This shift to cloud-native tools makes sense for several reasons, such as improved flexibility and responsiveness, but also presents many challenges associated with security management and compliance. But your business can work with eMazzanti professionals to secure data, ensure compliance, and streamline device management with solutions like Ghost Lab and Mobile Device Management (MDM).
Mobile Device Management technology lets you monitor and secure numerous mobile devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and in some cases desktop computers, from one location. with a centralized administration console. MDM is one of the technology types in the category known as Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), the others being Mobile Content Management and MCM, and Mobile Application Management or MAM.
The Increased Demand for MDM in Organizations
- The Take Your Device Trend: In many firms, it is necessary to use mobile phones at the workplace. While this increases productivity and ease, it is also a security concern, because personal devices at home may not adhere to the same security guidelines as business equipment.
- Increased Mobility: In an era where many employees now work from home, or otherwise outside the structures of a company’s walls, businesses must make sure that employee information can be securely accessed from anywhere.
- Conditions For Compliance: Many organizations need to comply with industry-specific data protection regulations such as GDPR HIPAA and CCPA. MDM helps enterprises to enforce compliance guidelines across all devices.
- Rising Cybersecurity Threats: Malware, phishing and other attacks target network weaknesses on mobile devices. MDM helps protect these devices from these threats by requiring security patches, along with encryption or device monitoring.
How Does MDM Work?
A small agent or app is placed on each device enrolled in MDM. This agent connects with a central MDM server that is hosted by either an outsourced provider or the IT department of the company. An MDM server does some software installation, pushes policies, and keeps a record of every device that has enrolled.
The steps involved in the MDM process are:
- Device Enrolment to MDM System: Here is where it all begins. This can be done by the user, either manually or with the help of a bulk enrolment tool. After a device is enrolled, the MDM server provides it with application security policies and configuration settings.
- Other activities depend on the security and compliance policies set up by the MDM server. These may include policies like enforcing secure passwords, enabling encryption, disabling risky functions (for example installing third-party apps), and others.
- Administrators can update and remove applications from devices that have been enrolled by them. MDM can also be used to create an enterprise app store, where users download only approved applications from one location.
- The MDM server monitors enrolled devices and notifies the administrator of their status and operations conducted. This identifies an application’s usage security compliance and potential security risks.
- Users can configure your device, erase it, or reset the stolen or lost Windows Phone using your favorite web browser. Even if the physical device is breached, these remote functions ensure that confidential business data remain secure.
Positive changes that MDM brings to organizations:
An MDM solution helps organizations cope with a range of challenges, from security to productivity. Here are some of the main benefits:
- Greater Security: MDM can protect devices by enforcing such regulations as encryption, robust passwords, and automatic updates. You can protect against malware, unauthorized access, and data breaches. The ability to remotely wipe a device if it is lost or stolen also means that private company information will not be obtained by unauthorized parties.
- Regulation compliance: Many industries — such as healthcare, finance and legal –must abide by strict regulations to safeguard sensitive data. With audit trails to demonstrate compliance and assurance that every device is within the security policy parameters, MDM solutions help organizations meet these regulatory mandates, while removing costly IT management overhead. MDM also allows IT teams to manage devices remotely, deploy apps, and push security updates from a single dashboard.
- Productivity Boost: MDM solutions can increase productivity by ensuring that workers — both in-office and remote — have access to the data and apps they need. Features such as secure VPN connections and remote application management allow employees on the go to stay productive and securely connected.
- Savings: MDM can help an enterprise reduce costs by avoiding the manual management of devices, in addition to thwarting potential security events. Companies can also cut down on large packets of expensive hardware through BYOD policies and ensure that employees are sticking to company security parameters on their cell phones.
MDM Implementation Challenges
Despite these benefits, MDM might present some challenge:
- Privacy Concerns: One of the most important challenges in implementing an MDM is balancing security and employee privacy, especially for companies that allow personally owned devices. Workers may fear that the company is peeking into their private information — such as text messages, images, and even app usage. This fear can be partially alleviated by MDM solutions that feature containerization features, which silos personal and corporate data, keeping them separate on the device, while only managing and monitoring corporate data.
- Device Discrepancies: Organizations with a large volume of staff members at different locations, utilizing a multitude of devices and operating systems, can make device management difficult. MDM solutions may need to be able to run across thousands of Windows iOS and Android Devices. while also managing policies for all the different platforms.
- Cost and Complexity: The implementation and management process of MDM solutions may be intimidating for smaller companies with few IT resources. Maintenance of MDM solutions typically includes user-assistance updates and policy changes. Fortunately, experienced professionals at eMazzanti can help you evaluate, design, implement, and maintain MDM and other solutions
