Imagine one of your employees receives a phone call from someone who sounds exactly like you. They have your cadence, your "ums," and even that specific way you clear your throat before getting down to business. Would they be able to tell it’s a deepfake, or would they follow the instructions to urgently reset a password or move funds?
If you can’t answer that with an emphatic "yes," you’ve got some work to do. We’ve moved far beyond the era of the Nigerian Prince emails and obvious typos. We are now in the age of highly polished, AI-driven social engineering where the "bad guys" are using your own identity against your team.
I was working on a project the other day, and as I started typing out a summary, a little icon popped up in the margin of my Google Doc. It was Google’s AI, essentially asking me if I wanted help "refining" my thoughts.
If you use Google Workspace for your business, you’ve likely seen these "Help me write" prompts appearing. It’s part of the massive AI wave we’re seeing everywhere, but this one is right there in the middle of your workspace.
It might sound crazy, but sometimes I miss the Nigerian Prince. Back in the day, the threats were almost charming in their incompetence. You had the broken English, the bizarre formatting, and the royal promises that were so obviously fake they were almost funny. If you had even a shred of common sense, you were safe.
But those days are gone.
The mobile device is deeply ingrained in modern life, society, and culture, so it will be present in the workplace. This can be a very useful thing… with the right preparations, your employees can become a lot more mobile in terms of their potential productivity.
However, mobile work isn’t without its dangers. Perhaps the most obvious risk is that a device will be lost, whether it's left behind in a rideshare or pilfered as a latte is retrieved from the barista. Either way, your business will have suffered a data breach.
Let’s talk about how this outcome can be avoided with some proactive planning, thanks to mobile device management.