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I am a software developer at a company that currently does not allow associates to use personal devices at work (ethernet and guest wi-fi alike). This makes it very hard to work on side projects (like school) during lunch, or other down times.

I'm a programmer and not an infrastructure/ IT security guy, so from my point of view I see it as a win in many areas such as morale. But I know there are security concerns (as well as old-school management styles where internet access is seen as a time sink).

I want it and would love to have a good argument as to why it is a good idea. However, in general I want to be more educated on the subject.

Are there blog posts/articles/books that discuss this issue and its pros/cons?

EDIT: We can assume that a separate network can be created that protects the internal corporate network, so that personal devices won't pose a direct threat to company devices within the network.

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  • fyi, I did find this, but found it difficult to find any more than that.
    – Noremac
    Commented Aug 9, 2012 at 21:44

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You asked for resources:

Cisco

Zenprise

InfoWorld

TrendMicro

Let me know if you need more. The basic answer is, we need to figure out how to protect data on someone's personal device. BYOD (bring your own device) is an inevitability, we just have to figure out how to do it.

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  • These are great, thanks. I'd vote up your answer if I could (darn 1 reputation). It gave me the BYOD term to use and I see that there are packages already out there to help solve this. I'll look into the info world articles to see more discussions on this.
    – Noremac
    Commented Aug 9, 2012 at 22:42
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One of the concerns is that you might bring a device onto the network that is infected with a worm that might then spread to other vulnerable machines on the network. Their networks are likely shielded behind outward-facing firewalls that thwart direct attempts to communicate with devices onto the network, but a device from within the network can talk to other devices on the network and potentially infect them. If you have many users who are not security-savvy, it is a very real threat that some of them could join infected devices to the internal network. Cooperate espionage has happened this way before.

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    Very true and a good point. Lets say that a separate network can be created so as to avoid this risk (I've updated the question to specify this above).
    – Noremac
    Commented Aug 9, 2012 at 22:29
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You can tell that this is benefit for security measures, that the social groups can use their social networking, as well you can track the devices and register the MAC addresses.

Also limit to 1 MAC per person at the time, and bandwidth quota of 1GB and filter youtube - and also block access to corporate email.

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  • -1 because the question was about resources that explain BYOD, not offer your opinion on network configuration. How do you know that his company doesn't produce videos on YouTube? It would be a bad recommendation to block it if that's the case. How do you know a 1GB bandwidth cap is adequate for the work the people in his office do (again, what if it's a production company)? Bad form throwing out config info without knowing what it applies to.
    – Everett
    Commented Aug 10, 2012 at 15:08
  • Home equipment at work is not for publishing or watching youtube videos but making video phonecalls at max, and not all day.
    – Andrew Smith
    Commented Aug 10, 2012 at 21:10
  • Except when it is. I have a friend that worked at Sundance. It happened.
    – Everett
    Commented Aug 11, 2012 at 3:09

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