Threats Introduced by Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) Adoption in an Ethiopian Higher Educational Institution : Solutions to Security and Privacy

The higher educational institutions of Ethiopia are seriously susceptible to cyber attacks. If malicious actors succeeded, it can adversely affect the security of sensitive information of stakeholders. The overall impact on security and privacy along with credibility of the institutions will be questioned. Usually, it is found that most of the organizations that encourage the culture of “Personal or Bring your Own Devices (BYOD)”are vulnerable to security and privacy breaches. The paper investigates and analyzes the security and privacy strategic considerations used by educational institutions when deciding the strategic adoption of BYOD. Further, the study finds out the cost-effective and secured solutions that can help these institutions balance the trade-offs between excessive-freedom of network access and protecting from BYOD security and privacy risks. The data was collected using interview of experts and a survey questionnaire to voluntary stakeholders. The findings reveal that BYOD is already in practice and adopted without considering transparent policies, security and privacy issues, device and application management tools, end-user security/privacy awareness and training. Also, there is excessive freedom of network access to whosoever is part of the network. This freedom causes security and privacy risks and bandwidth constraints. Finally, the study has made a comparative analysis of latest BYOD management tools using selected parameters like cost, diversified device and application management capability including device registration, remote tracking, wiping, locking and training/support from vendors for alleviating the issues and challenges. After critical analysis of mobile device management tools, the Manage Engine Mobile Device Manager (MEMDM) is proposed as the most fit software to meet the necessary criteria set