How will you deal with PUDs

I just attended the MidMarket CIO Forum in Orlando this week presented by Boardroom Events. The conference is organized into small boardroom groups that stay together for two days of vendor presentations. The groups are selected on common process and technology needs defined in a pre-conference survey. The event also includes a couple keynotes as well as presentations from Info-Tech Research Group analysts and a vendor show floor. All in all, a great event for vendor contact/information and peer networking.

This was a new piece of jargon for me: Personal Unmanaged Device or PUD.

James Quinn, from Info-Tech, presented on the influx of these devices into our network and that it is inevitable that we will need to include them in our mobile strategy. The use of these by our employees, contractors, etc. has been growing: 2011 53% of users, 2012 67% and by 2013 99%.

The end result of determining the key security issues showed that doing nothing was the most expensive solution. The other solutions included combinations of Mobile Device Management, Anti-Virus/malware, and application virtualization. This was all on top of doing data security at the app level.

Start off with the bare necessities: MDM, Anti-malware, policies and education. Depending on needs, add data control with monitoring and reporting, comprehensive policy management w/ monitoring for compliance, network access, and zero data footprint apps.

In the end you cannot replace supervision and people management.

A very good presentation with a lively discussion from the audience participants.