You Need to be Mindful of Wearable Tech

The increase in wearable technology that you see coming into your business has substantially increased over the past couple of years. People are doing a better job of tracking their health and using wearable technology to improve their work lives. This creates a problem for the business because every single device brought onto a network is a potential threat and threats have to be managed. Let’s take a look at how people are using wearable technology and what you can do in response to this trend. 

Wearable Technology

Wearable technology as it is understood by most people is typically the use of fitness trackers or smart jewelry, but it can extend into innovative new technologies such as virtual reality headsets. In business, most of the time you will be dealing with endpoints such as smartwatches that must be considered if they are going to have access to your network, either directly through Wi-Fi or through access to your employees’ smartphones. 

What is crucial is data security inside a business environment. Many wearable devices don’t meet the demands of many of the compliance standards that your business may operate under, including HIPAA. More than that, since these devices get push notifications from an individual’s smartphone, they have some potential vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, these devices often have a limited UI, making it difficult for organizations to improve the data security of the applications pushing communications to wearable technology.

What You Need to Do to Ensure Wearables Don’t Pose Security Risks

The first thing you need to do when you have people bringing devices onto your business’ network is to concoct a reliable Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. This will help to define how these devices can be used within the confines of a workplace. Many organizations have built their BYOD policy with smartphones in mind, but it is important that any BYOD policy is revised to cover the appearance of other Internet-connected devices. 

Once your policies are ironclad and put in place, you need to have the management that this technology requires. This requires a reliable and robust Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform that can control all the mobile endpoints brought onto the network. With proper management and control over these devices, the chances of a wearable vulnerability affecting the network is reduced significantly.  

The truth is that people love new and exciting technology, and wearable technology will continue to grow and integrate itself into the business’ IT strategy. If you would like to learn how to properly secure your business’ IT from wearables to servers, give the IT professionals at White Mountain IT Services a call today at 603-889-0800.