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Safely and securely mobilising business

Editorial Type: Opinion     Date: 05-2015    Views: 2134   







Is the IT mobility security challenge impeding deployment, meaning that businesses are missing out? Yad Jaura, Marketing Director at Globo plc explains what needs to be done.

BYOD
The upsurge in consumer technology has put ever smarter technology into the hands of users. Employees soon realised that the devices they used at home could be helpful at work too, and so was born bring your own device (BYOD). Over time employees smartphones and tablets have become commonplace in the office, connecting to the company network accessing business data and email.

Through BYOD enterprise mobility has effectively arrived by the back door - and along with it the risk that company information may unwittingly leave by the front door. All the signs are that many companies are unaware that this is going on. Ovum reports that of the nearly 66 per cent of smartphone owners who admit to using their devices at work, only 26 per cent of those are known to IT departments.

DATA AND DEVICE SECURITY
Use of personal devices in the office is just part of the problem. For staff to be truly productive they must access business data and applications outside the office. Once again data - some sensitive, some not - is leaving the confines of the office and being stored on employee owned mobile devices. Access control and authentication can go some way to help but in the case of a lost or stolen device, it's highly likely that company data will fall into the wrong hands.

With this in mind, an effective security management regime for mobile devices must always include a way of partitioning personal and business information, creating a secure workspace for business data, applications, and content. It should also offer a way of erasing this workspace remotely should a device become in any way compromised and when its owner leaves the company.

MOBILE DEVICE MANAGEMENT
Whether mobile devices are provided by the organisation or by users, if they are to be used for work there's a need to keep them current and updated with the latest software patches and security fixes. Field workers with no direct access to the IT department need some way to receive the technical support enjoyed by their colleagues in the office. Mobile device management (MDM) allows central IT teams to take control of an entire estate of mobile devices, keeping them up to date, properly configured and fully supported, as well as ensuring that they comply with corporate policies on usage and security.

Mobile application management and mobile content management policies work well for application and content management too. These two disciplines look to enhance security still further by defining users and groups of users so that only those who are authorised can access defined applications and data. Typically, organised by job function and department, users can only access the applications and content that they require for being effective in their role.

ENFORCEMENT WITHOUT IMPEDIMENT
When applying such security measures it's important that they are not responsible for making employees work any more difficult: in the mobile environment this can be a challenge. For example remote access and authentication should not be frustrated by an occasional loss of signal and wireless connections may need more robust encryption to protect data in transit and comply with regulatory standards.

DEPLOYING MOBILE APPLICATIONS
A security and management foundation for mobile devices such as that outlined, does not in itself constitute an entire enterprise mobility solution. Rather it is the enabler for one. Once in place, the way is then clear to deploy the custom mobile applications that are the real prize of mobility. Indeed, many believe that improving the way mobile and field-based staff work holds the most potential for overall business improvement since IT first revolutionised things more than 40 years ago. NC

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