Introduction
In this article, we continue to examine some of the remediative actions that you can take to protect your wireless devices.
The Best Practices
Keep up with the software patches and upgrades:
Just as much as your servers and workstations must be upgraded on a regular basis, so do your wireless devices. This is one of the best ways to ensure that any vulnerabilities or weaknesses which were not known before in the operating system (such as the iOS or Android) can be completely patched up. These upgrades can be done remotely by the IT Security team, but they can take time to download and be deployed. Therefore, it is always best to do them after business hours or on the weekends when your employees are not typically using company issued wireless devices. This is also known as an “over the air” patching process.
Backups and more backups:
This is one of the cardinal rules today in Cybersecurity. After all, if your business is impacted by a security breach, the only way you will be able to restore operations quickly is through the data backups that you have created. But they just don’t apply to databases, they also apply to wireless devices, because they too contain company data as well. Thus, you must also include backing them up as part of your overall schedule as well.
Create a specialized network:
A key rule to any sort of network optimization design is to break it down into separate segments, also known as “subnets”. This not only helps to eliminate the chances of a cascading network failure to occur in the wake of a security breach, but also provides a sense of redundancy as well in case one segment breaks down. In this regard, you should create a specialized subnet for all of the wireless communications that place with all of the devices that have been issued to your employees. For example, if a Cyberattacker for some reason or another is able to break through your wireless network, then this will be isolated to just that subnet. The other subnets that are internal to your business should remain safe and intact as a result.
Deploy a de-provisioning process:
Although you may keep your wireless devices updated from both an application and security standpoint, the truth of the matter is that all of them will go out of date within a short period of time after acquisition (typically the life span is about 2-3 years). As a result, you will need to replace this legacy equipment with newer ones. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that you have the appropriate de-provisioning process in place and is followed to the letter. Part of this will be completely wiping out any information and data that was stored on them. These devices should not only be discarded in an eco-friendly way, but from the standpoint of security as well. For example, out of commission devices should never be sold on the aftermarket, or to any other third parties.
Conclusions
Overall, this article series has examined some of the key components that should be a part of any mobility security policy. However, keep in mind that these are general guidelines, and how they will be customized to your business will largely depend upon your security requirements. Equally important is to have the ability to monitor any Cyberthreats that may be prevalent to your company issued wireless devices on a real time basis.
This is where making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will come into great use.
Ravi Das is a Cybersecurity Consultant and Business Development Specialist. He also does Cybersecurity Consulting through his private practice, RaviDas Tech, Inc. He also possesses the Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) cert from the ISC2.
Visit his website at mltechnologies.io
