As the consumer market debates whether the iPhone 5 is a significant improvement in style and functionality over the iPhone 4S, the business sector must answer questions like: Can the organization protect its data when employees bring their iPhones into work? As Wireless Week columnist Keith Mallinson noted, the bring-your-own-device trend is partly responsible for the rise of tablets and smartphones in the workplace.

There are certainly more than a few challenges that need to be addressed before successfully leveraging the full potential of BYOD. The first is establishing the ground rules for an effective security policy that details which devices will be supported and how to implement access control. Despite these challenges, Mallinson characterized BYOD as a flood that quickly overcame the resistance of IT departments, and that flood created a data security problem. When an organization decides to move forward with a BYOD initiative, it needs to have an effective security stance that guards information on infinitely more devices than before.

"Important security provisions include: identity and access management that is distinct from that for consumer applications; encryption for data protection over the air and on the device - in case it is stolen or gets left behind on a bus; data loss prevention to stop enterprise applications from sharing data with consumer applications or being synchronized with public cloud services," Mallinson wrote.

Data theft and the mobile landscape
Businesses stand to lose a lot if data protection measures are not put into place and carefully evaluated for effectiveness, and it's not just lost devices that organizations should watch out for. As Dark Reading columnist Paul Roberts noted, mobile malware is currently a small but growing threat. And malware is more than just annoying, it can be downright criminal. In fact, security researchers have discovered malicious software on mobile devices that spreads throughout the corporate network and steals any data it can find.

It doesn't take much to imagine some risky situations - maybe an employee accesses sales records and a malicious program within the network grabs that information. An increasing variety of devices and threats are out there, many of which can be mitigated by utilizing data protection software in conjunction with traditional solutions.