Johannesburg, 10 Nov 2015
Mobility is undoubtedly transforming the way enterprises conduct their business, but while it offers organisations a whole new type of flexibility, it also poses new and dangerous security risks to data. Bring your own device (BYOD) may be the latest buzzword, but while it clearly boosts productivity and reduces infrastructure investment costs, simply allowing employees to bring various devices into the organisation and connecting these to the network opens up the company to a variety of vulnerabilities.
It's always the responsibility of IT to create a good mobile security strategy, says Sean Glansbeek, MD at Seven Days Technologies, but with so many solutions and technologies available, how does IT ensure all scenarios are covered? How does it ensure the solution chosen is non-intrusive and compliant, and most critically, how does IT protect confidential information under all these constraints?
"Seven Days Technologies offers a strategy that consists of a range of solutions designed to do all of the above. We deliver data containerisation for BYOD, mobile device management for company-owned devices and remote application access management for remote PCs and laptops," he says.
"We find that organisations quickly discover that data security is a journey that needs to be addressed in stages. This approach also forces companies to clean up their data environments, resulting in the right data being used by the right people. This, in turn, makes the sharing of information easier and more secure."
He adds the main goal should be the delivery of information to devices in a secure manner. The key is not to focus on the device, but rather to focus on the data. He says this is where data containerisation comes into play, as it separates business data from private information.
"Basically, all business information resides within the container and no information can be copied or saved outside of this. We offer solutions such as Excitor EMM in this regard. The next question, of course, is how do companies extend this BYOD type security model to the external unmanaged users?
"Secure data collaboration can be used for receiving, sharing or distributing documents and files, and is suitable for both staff and external parties. A solution such as Accellion offers private data collaboration clouds that reside on the customer network," he suggests.
Finally, continues Glansbeek, remote PCs and laptops should also form part of an organisation's mobile strategy. What is required here is the ability to perform remote application access management. This is, essentially, a preconfigured application or bootable agent installed on a memory stick, which then connects to a secure server.
"The user is presented with a menu that offers the applications and documents they have the right to access. Users cannot roam around the network or try to access unauthorised applications. Additionally, IT can disable printing, hard drives and the ability to save information locally, thereby preventing data leakage without the need for adding additional security on these endpoints.
"In the end, mobile security is about protecting business information stored on and transmitted from mobile devices, and these devices are inherently vulnerable. This is why Seven Days Technologies will help enterprises develop a comprehensive mobile data security strategy that offers the correct technology for the right business requirements," he concludes.
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