Ashville NC IT Support Company | Blue Ridge Technology, Inc.

Android 13: Better Security for Business Users

Android 13 is safer for your business
Mobile devices can be a security threat to your business — but it’s hardly possible to force your people to never access business materials while on the go. Doing that might even threaten your business, making it harder for your sales force to close deals or for your management to resolve off-hours problems. If this conundrum — access versus security — is one that keeps you up at night, then Google’s recent announcement about a new version of Android will come as welcome news. Bottom line: Android 13 is on its way, and it brings numerous security enhancements that should eliminate some of those mobile security concerns. Here’s what you need to know as a business leader.

Better IT Admin Controls

The first big update is a little nerdy, but it’s an important one. Android 13 brings more robust admin controls to business devices running the OS. If your team members have work phones, your IT admin will be able to monitor security logs more efficiently and push security updates more quickly. We’ll come back to what this might look like in practice near the end of this post.

Better Work/Life Compartmentalization

Android already has a few features that help people keep their business and their personal life separate, like multiple profiles. Users can choose when they open an app or file which profile — personal or business, for example — they want to use for it. Users might not want their personal hobby searches showing up during a live presentation, nor do they want your business YouTube videos (training, marketing, and so on) cluttering up their at-home personalized recommendations. With Android 13, Google is expanding this compartmentalization into several other areas of the phone. Now users can maintain separate photo galleries for business and home, allowing them to use one device for both worlds without messy spillover. Another feature your team members will love (especially if you’re using tight admin controls) is end-to-end encryption on personal profiles. When they use the needed integration, their data stays encrypted along the whole path of transmission, keeping prying eyes away. And you can rest easy from a security perspective: with the other controls in place, you won’t have to worry quite so much about what your employees do on their personal profiles. Those actions are much less likely to compromise your business.

Improved Lost Mode

Android users have, until now, lacked a feature anywhere near as effective as Apple’s Find My…, which is extremely accurate and allows users to remotely lock or wipe their devices if the need arises. That changes with Android 13 and the new and improved Lost Mode. These updates bring it much closer in capability to the Apple version of the tech: now android users can lock their devices remotely and use Lost Mode to help them locate the device.

Mobile Device Management Is an Even Better Solution

Android 13 will go a long way toward closing the security gap between Android and iOS, but this update still doesn’t solve every security concern. It can’t do anything about that personal laptop, which could be full of malware, for one. If you’re looking for an even better, more secure solution for mobile and off-site access, mobile device management or MDM is the way to go. This tech is powerful, giving you the optimal balance of flexibility and security. Setting it up can be a little complex, though. We don’t recommend going it alone. If you could use a technology partner for mobile device management or any other aspect of your IT needs, reach out to our team. We’re happy to help!