The Influence of Technical and Social Factors in Mitigating Threats in a BYOD-Enabled Environment

Abstract

As the adoption of bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon by businesses and other sectors continues to grow. Employees find it desirable to use their personally owned mobile devices for work without the need to differentiate between their carrier services and their organizations' network. However, this practice makes such businesses vulnerable to various security threats. Nigeria banking institutions, like other businesses globally, have adopted the BYOD phenomenon. However, BYOD trend constitutes heterogeneity, and there is large diversity in mobile devices, hence the risk of corporate data being exposed to threats increases. Thus, this paper investigates the influence of technical and social threats as it relates to BYOD phenomenon in the banking institutions. Data was collected from the employees of four banks in Nigeria that supported BYOD trend. The study found out that there are some security threats that are integrated, and the existing security measures are not sufficient to mitigate those threats. Hence, this study has presented an integrated solution to curb these threats.