What Is and How Does Bring Your Own Technology Work?

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) is a practice adopted by companies that allow employees to use their own personal devices at work.

The adoption of this concept favors professionals, who use devices with which they are familiar, and companies, which invest less in technological devices. To learn more, read our text to the end!

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) started among executives who had access to cutting-edge technology useful to their work.

Over time, other professionals have begun to use their own mobile devices in the companies in which they work, which benefits companies and employees themselves.

On the other hand, ensuring information security in a context where employees access corporate data directly from their tablets, smartphones, and other electronic devices is challenging. With that in mind, we prepared this article on the subject. Here you will see:

1. What Is Bring Your Own Technology?

2. What Is the Importance of BYOT For a Company and Its Employees?

3. Does BYOT Have Disadvantages?

4. What Is a BYOT Example?

5. What Is the Difference Between BYOT and BYOD?

6. How to Ensure the Security of External Devices?

7. About senhasegura

8. Conclusion

Enjoy the read!

1. What Is Bring Your Own Technology?

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) is an increasingly common practice in the corporate environment, where employees of a company choose and purchase their devices.

This concept refers especially to mobile devices, such as tablets, laptops, and smartphones, and refers to the integration between these devices and users, as well as the expectation of people to have their devices customized and not chosen by the organization in which they work.

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) can also be understood as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

2. What Is the Importance of BYOT For a Company and Its Employees?

As we have mentioned in the introduction to this article, BYOT favors the company and the employees themselves. This is because most professionals prefer to use the devices with which they are familiar, becoming much more productive.

Moreover, encouraging Bring Your Own Technology allows companies to save money by reducing investments in their own equipment.

3. Does BYOT Have Disadvantages?

Organizations that adhere to BYOT need to be more attentive to information security. This is because their employees can access malicious files, making their devices more vulnerable to leaks of sensitive information, and these devices do not always comply with the company’s trust standards or are evaluated by the IT department.

In addition to the lack of security related to BYOT, professionals can take more work home, compromising their time off and getting overwhelmed.

4. What Is a BYOT Example?

BYOT refers to devices, such as tablets, computers, laptops, and smartphones, belonging to professionals and used in corporate contexts, internal or external to the company.

5. What Is the Difference Between BYOT and BYOD?

As we have mentioned in this article, BYOD is a concept that means ?Bring Your Own Device.? That is, the term refers to the practice of authorizing company employees to work using their own devices.

This concept has three variations: BYOT, BYOP, and BYOPC. The first is Bring Your Own Technology, the second is Bring Your Own Phone. BYOPC stands for Bring Your Own PC.

6. How to Ensure the Security of External Devices?

The main practices that can optimize security in the context of Bring Your Own Technology are:

• Establish a password policy;
• Ensure the privacy of company data;
• Limit the use of the devices; and
• Learn how to proceed in case of dismissals.

Check out each of these practices more closely:

• Establish a password policy

Using strong passwords is an efficient way to prevent data breaches. Thus, companies that have adopted BYOT must require their employees to create secure passwords, guided by the following good practices:

• Opt for long passwords, preferably with 14 characters or more;
• Create a full combination of characters, which gathers numbers, upper and lower case letters, and symbols;
• Avoid words easily found in dictionaries, in addition to names of companies, products, and people;
• Do not reuse previously used passwords;
• Do not use words written backward as a password; and
• If possible, use a password vault, so you do not have to memorize several complex passwords.

• Ensure the privacy of company data

It is important to make it clear to employees that the company’s data belongs only to the organization, in addition to presenting a privacy policy and showing what will be the consequences in the event of confidential information leaks.

• Limit the use of the devices

Although the devices belong to employees, their use should be restricted in the corporate environment. In this sense, they should avoid using certain resources when in the organization’s network.

• Learn how to proceed in case of dismissals

There must be a security protocol in case of the dismissal of employees. Ideally, the data on the employee’s device should be deleted/blocked as soon as possible to ensure this information does not reach the wrong people.

7. About senhasegura

We are from senhasegura, an organization specializing in cybersecurity, whose main purpose is to guarantee the digital sovereignty of the companies that hire us, providing control over actions and privileged data and avoiding unauthorized access and leaks of confidential data.

To achieve this goal, we follow the lifecycle of privileged access management through machine automation, before, during, and after accesses.

Moreover, we work to avoid disruptions to companies’ operations, which can impact their performance; we automatically verify the use of privileges; and we bring organizations into compliance with audit criteria and standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

8. Conclusion

In this article, you saw that:

• Bring Your Own Technology is an increasingly common practice in corporate IT, where employees from a company bring their own technologies to work.
• This practice is welcomed by employees, who use devices which they are used to, and by companies, which have access to technology and at the same time reduce costs with the acquisition of equipment;
• On the other hand, the use of personal devices at work increases vulnerability to cyber threats, since not all devices comply with company security standards;
• BYOT refers to devices such as tablets, computers, laptops, and smartphones;
• This concept has three variations: BYOT, BYOP, and BYOPC.
• To ensure the security of external devices, it is essential to establish a password policy, ensure the privacy of company data, limit the use of devices, and have a security protocol in case of dismissals.