Mobile security management

1.Why are organizations looking to secure mobile devices?

The increased adoption of mobile devices in organizations has improved employee efficiency but has also added to IT admins' burden of ensuring corporate data security. Admins now also need to concentrate on mobile device security in addition to securing corporate data on laptops and desktops. The mobile security management capabilities of mobile device management (MDM) solutions allow admins to simplify the mobile device security.

2. What is mobile security management (MSM)?

Mobile security management ensures that all mobile endpoints within an organization are fully protected from security threats. This involves enforcing security policies, configurations, and restrictions on the smartphones, tablets, and laptops used by the organization's workforce, effectively protecting corporate data when it is at rest, in use, and in transit.

3. Why is mobile device security management important?

Traditionally, employees accomplished tasks on local workstations like desktops that did not require corporate data to leave the organization's secure internal network. Now, remote work has become the new normal, resulting in a surge in the use of mobile devices for work. Distributed workforces access corporate resources on their mobile devices and over the internet, causing business-sensitive data to leave organizations' internal networks.

This increases the chances of corporate data being leaked, stolen, or manipulated by cybercriminals looking to leverage any security vulnerability to their benefit. One successful data breach can make an organization become noncompliant with international privacy and security standards, resulting in hefty fines and irreparable damage to its reputation. Therefore, securing these distributed mobile endpoints has become a task of paramount importance for IT admins.

4. What are the key requirements a mobile security management (MSM) tool should fulfill?

When evaluating a mobile security management tool, make sure it secures all three states of enterprise data:

• Data at rest: Ensure corporate data on devices is well-protected from data leaks and security threats by separating it from users' personal data, enforcing encryption standards, and applying restrictions on data sharing.
• Data in use: Facilitate secure access to corporate data and attachments through trusted apps and enforce data loss prevention (DLP) policies.
• Data in transit: Enable secure communication between devices and the corporate network.

5. How can organizations benefit from mobile security management (MSM)?

On work devices, comprehensive mobile security management can ensure the three major aspects of data security: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

• Confidentiality: Apply security restrictions, block malicious apps and content, and create a secure virtual container to host corporate data. Enforce DLP policies on devices to ensure the data within the devices is inaccessible to unauthorized users, thereby preventing data leaks.
• Integrity: Enforce the use of secure protocols and data encryption standards to maintain the integrity of corporate data in transit.
• Availability: Allow required corporate apps and content to be shared with devices on time and ensure secure access for users.

6. How does a mobile device security management tool work?

Mobile security management software helps protect enterprise mobile devices from security threats by allowing IT admins to enforce:

• Proactive measures: Through mobile security management, admins can ensure devices are ready to safely handle corporate data by enforcing mandatory passcode policies, which effectively build the first line of defense on devices. Admins can also enforce secure communication protocols, control app permissions, block access to malicious apps and content, and prevent corporate data from being automatically backed up to cloud services or shared with other apps on the device.
• Reactive measures: Mobile security management tools can detect noncompliant devices and prevent them from accessing the corporate network. Admins can schedule, automate, or delay device OS updates and can remotely troubleshoot devices when they face technical issues. If a device is lost, stolen, or removed from specific geographic boundaries, mobile device security management software can track it and wipe the corporate data on it.

7. How can you ensure the security of corporate data on employee-owned mobile devices?

In a BYOD environment, separating the corporate workspace from users' personal data on user-owned devices through containerization will keep corporate data secure while ensuring the privacy of users' personal data. All corporate data and apps will be hosted within a virtual container on the device that the admin can monitor, manage, and secure. This container can also be exclusively wiped if the employee leaves the organization or if the device is lost or stolen, thus ensuring business-sensitive information is kept confidential.

8. How does Mobile Device Manager Plus help secure enterprise mobile devices?

Mobile Device Manager Plus provides various proactive and reactive measures to secure corporate data, devices, apps and emails in the following ways:

Data security

• Creating logical containers on devices to ensure personal apps cannot access corporate data.
• Mandating encryption of data on mobile devices to secure data at rest, in use, and in transit.
• Enforcing stronger passcode to guard data from third-party intrusions.
• Enabling geofencing to ensure corporate data is wiped when specific devices leave a predefined geographical.
• Securing lost or stolen devices by enabling Lost Mode on devices and performing a complete or corporate wipe to protect corporate data.

Data protection

• Automatically detecting and removing any Jailbroken or rooted devices accessing corporate data.
• Automating OS updates and ensuring the devices are updated with all security patches.
• Monitoring the device location along with a history of all the locations traversed by devices.
• Remotely controlling or viewing device screens to ensure all device issues are resolved instantly.
• Executing remote Commands to protect lost or stolen devices.

App security

• Blocklisting malicious apps or apps that don't meet your organization's compliance standards.
• Remotely configuring apps and granting only essential permissions to apps.
• Locking your device to a single or a specific set of apps with Single App Lock/Kiosk mode. You can also enable multi-app Kiosk Mode on Windows 10 devices.
• Automating app updates to ensure the apps are always running the latest version.
• Testing and deploying enterprise apps to protect your production environment from critical bugs.

Network security

• Allowing enrolled devices to connect only to authorized Wi-Fi networks.
• Creating and distributing device specific certificates using Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP).
• Configuring a VPN for corporate resources and apps.
• Preventing users from accessing unauthorised websites by either blocklisting or allowlisting web content.

Email security

• Enabling conditional access to corporate Exchange accounts.
• Allowing users to access corporate e-mail attachments only using trusted apps or the document viewer in ME MDM app.
• Preconfiguring the corporate Exchange accounts for users.
• Ensuring secure communication with S/MIME.