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

Introduction

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a growing trend that allows individuals of an organization to bring their own devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets to work (Mark,2014). Most employees prefer to use their personal mobile devices for work because it enables easy communication and quick access to information (Nunoo, 2013). However, Bello, Armarego, and Murray (2015) noted that most employees take advantage of BYOD by connecting their devices to networks specifically for personal purpose and this makes it difficult to distinguish organizational data from personal data (Bello et al., 2015). Lindström and Hanken (2018), asserts that the implication of adopting BYOD in any organization implies handling the security concerns that comes with the use of personal devices for work purpose. Some of the security concerns includes the following: Firstly, employees connecting their personal device to unregulated public networks, thus making it vulnerable to risks such as data leakage (Jaiswal & Gupta, 2018). Secondly, employees are in the habit of using cloud storage services owing to inadequate memory storage on the device and also because it enables employees to save and access files wherever they are. However, such cloud services may pose a security risk to an organization’s information (Srivastava & Nanath, 2017). Thirdly, employees are fond of clicking links or downloading a free application on social media platforms for work purposes through their mobile devices. Such act endangers the corporate data on their devices by unknowingly acquiring malware, viruses, and spyware (Chanda & Zaorski, 2013). Lastly, employees sharing passwords with family and friends without realizing how this can cause a security breach to an organization’s information system.

Ubene, Agim, and Umo-Odiong (2018) highlights the following challenges in managing BYOD which includes lack of control of user device, understanding who and what is on the network, keeping the network malware-free and giving the appropriate access policies to enforce compliance and audit requirements.

As technological development continues to grow, threats to personal and organizations data also increases (Lee, 2015). According to Mark (2014), while BYOD is getting more popular in practice, Information Systems (IS) research has not yet reached full understanding of the influence of these security threats in a BYOD enabled environment. Although, Ofusori, Dlamini, and Prabhakar (2018) categorized these security threats under technical, social and mobility domains, Ometov et al. (2018) argues that the influence of technical and social threats is a significant risk that needs to be given priority in the banking sector. This is because the relationship between technical and social domains is such that it involves people communicating with one another through the use of network technology rather than the natural world (Ofusori et al., 2018). While, there are security threats and measures already identified exclusively for technical and social domains, they are not considered collectively together for a BYOD environment. This represents a gap in the literature, and it gives an opportunity for this study to address. Thus, this study aims to answer this research question:

To address the problem in focus, four hypotheses were delineated from the literature review. It is important to note that the objectives of this study are stated as follows: Firstly, to address the identified gap by investigating the security threats that are related to both technical and social domains for a BYOD enabled environment. Secondly, to provide primary empirical information about security threats associated with the uncontrolled exposure of data sharing through BYOD devices in the Nigerian banking sector. Lastly, this aims to contribute to the current theoretical perspectives concerning the use of mobile devices, therefore contributing to the existing body of knowledge regarding security threats for banks. Thus, the study addresses the following hypothesis:

• H0: Updating mobile devices on public network has a negative influence on the security of BYOD enabled environment.

• H0: Saving work document from laptop to a free cloud storage has a negative influence on the security of BYOD enabled environment.

• H0: Clicking links on social media has a negative influence on the security of BYOD enabled environment.

• H0: Sharing of password with family/friends has a negative influence in the security of BYOD enabled environment.