How to Police Smart Devices at Your Meetings?

It comes as no surprise that sensitive corporate meetings such as results rehearsals, board, and senior executive meetings etc, are protected with an array of security measures that are usually put in place just before the event. In more security aware organisations, security is tightened also during the actual event with various forms of live monitoring measures. These can range from security guards and professional TSCM (counter surveillance) teams to technologies that monitor radio transmissions to detect any information leak from a live meeting.

One of the key pain points to manage and detect during any sensitive meeting are the mobile and other smart devices, often notoriously used by the bad actors. Whilst once upon time, nobody thought of having a piece of individual technology as being an integral part of any meeting, now most meetings rely on smart technology. Indeed, the mobile security during sensitive meetings has evolved from specialised lockers, Faraday bags to managing all and any smart devices brought into a meeting, both work and personal.

Since ‘no mobiles’ policy or ‘no smart device zones’ are still very much used, and in some companies, they are even making a comeback, the human behaviour in partying ways with the owner’s device hasn’t changed at all. For many people, it still feels like a privacy intrusion and in many ways taking the phone away is like asking for a divorce.

However, in 90% of organisations, mobile security falls into a grey area. Here, I’m not talking about company-provided or work devices that are well-guarded, but rather off-network or personal devices that people carry with them daily into a workplace. Even in case of BYOD devices, which include company apps that partition and monitor a person’s device, all and any activity on the side of personal communications remains widely open and unmonitored.

How to police smart devices at your meetings?

What’s the risk? Is it a threat to company information?

Today’s smartphones are faster than the laptops most of us are carrying around. They are so powerful and versatile that perpetrators hardly need to deploy any additional technology to intercept sensitive and confidential information. Indeed, mobile phones have been the most frequently deployed espionage devices since the mid-80’s when they were commercially first introduced.

The top three mobile device breaches are sending live audio, video, and images from a device, accessing all information on a mobile device via hacking, and covertly planting a mobile device into or on anyone entering a restricted area. We also shouldn’t forget that all IoT devices are interactive and always online as they connect to a cellular, WiFi or Bluetooth networks. In other words, treat your smart device like a camera or a microphone that is always on and records your every move. You think it doesn’t, but it does.

Consider all this and then consider the smart device behaviour at your sensitive meetings. Then ask if those meetings are exposed? Basically, anybody carrying a smart device into a restricted area is a live microphone. Without protection, any unmonitored smart device is happily used by perpetrators as a gateway to specifically target restricted information. And why shouldn’t they – companies make it an easy enough task.

Our premise at Mobilewatch is simple. Smart mobile devices are ubiquitous and there is a need for a technology that helps companies to enforce their mobile security policies for all devices brought to their restricted events or areas. We have protected confidential corporate and government meetings for many years and there are a very few technologies like Rapidwatch that visualise all mobile breaches during sensitive discussions. Our technology does exactly that, rapidly detecting and locating any mobile device in a desired area. Plus it’s 3x easy – easy-to-deploy, easy-to-use and easy-to-understand.

As picture speaks more than a thousand words, here is a brief footage of our Rapidwatch technology in action at the Security & Policing 2024 EXPO in the UK last month. This is the view and evidence that should be a norm in any confidential meeting, used and applied by your security and cyber security teams.

Up your mobile security game today and get in touch.