Why BYOD Is Nothing For Me

There is this new supposed trend call "Bring Your Own Device", or BYOD for short, meaning you use your own personal devices at work and for work. It's probably the nightmare of every company network administrator because how do you ensure data security and confidentiality on devices you don't really have under your control. Their nightmares are perhaps lessened a bit as companies introduce methods to encrypt data and control data remotely, i.e. company network administrators can remotely wipe devices or at least the company parts of it should it become necessary and are probably also aware of the device's location, etc. And this is the point where I stop liking BOYD.

I fully embrace the idea that a device I buy is mine, it's under my control and I can do with it what I want. This is why I don't have an iPhone, it's not mine when I buy it, it's still controlled by Apple. No thanks. And even the mere thought of a company I work for having access to a device I own counters this very notion of being mine and being in control.

Perhaps BYOD can evolve a bit so I might have a second look!? How about a virtual machine in a mobile device running an encrypted OS with company applications? The host device is mine, the host OS and applications are mine but the content of the virtual machine is managed by the company. If I don't like what the company is doing, I get rid of the VM container. If the company needs to delete the data, they delete the virtual container. Done. A clear separation of control. I am not sure however if it would work from a security perspective as the host OS or an application running in the host OS could still access the memory of the virtual machine and thus maliciously extract data. But if that could be prevented, well, perhaps it might be worth a second look.