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Should an enterprise BYOD strategy allow the use of Gmail?

Creating separate accounts for business use on a third-party platform can be risky, but it depends on the context.

Google offers organizations the ability to host their mail on its platform, and it also offers additional features to manage these accounts — though these features are not part of Google’s free service. There are privacy concerns regarding enterprise use of Google business accounts, but organizations that have their employees use personal Gmail accounts for business purposes is a separate matter.

This enterprise BYOD strategy is a risky idea. Using a free service outside of the organization’s control and making it the recommended communication method is dangerous. The organization will have no control over the data being sent or the security policy wrapped around the communications. There is no data loss prevention applied to what’s being sent, there’s no web filtering or antiphishing protection, and the forensic data and logging of the email are lost.

Essentially, creating a separate personal account as part of an enterprise BYOD strategy actually severely limits BYOD security, and organizations should avoid doing it.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/answer/Should-an-enterprise-BYOD-strategy-allow-the-use-of-Gmail

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Frontline Sentinel authored by Matthew Pascucci. Read the original post at: http://www.frontlinesentinel.com/2017/09/should-enterprise-byod-strategy-allow.html