The unstoppable BYOD trend is crossing over to the mainstream and continues to impact the way businesses must think about and address mobile productivity. Users are mastering mobile devices on their own time and are using them as time-saving tools, creating increased demand on businesses to respond with appropriate policies and technologies to keep their data safe. Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, released today, highlights a 58 percent increase in mobile threats targeting these devices, with almost a third designed to steal information. Symantec already offers the broadest array of technologies to keep mobile business data safe, and we have recently added several more items to that list with new updates to the Symantec Mobile Management Suite.
To truly keep business data safe in today’s increasingly complex IT environment, mobility solutions must be able to effectively address the challenges across multiple use cases. Companies need mobile device management (MDM) for some situations and mobile application management (MAM) for many others. Assuring the identity of the user is always important, and protecting data at rest and in motion is critical, but not always easy when you don’t control the device or the communications channels, as with BYOD.
In addition to Symantec’s recent integration of MDM and MAM into a single product and console, we’ve added a new secure email client to address the highest use app for confidential data, single sign-on to simplify the user experience and SSL with URL whitelisting to protect data in motion. Together, these additions support Symantec’s promise of high mobile productivity and flexibility with the seamless coexistence of personal and business use on the same device.
Secure email included as part of the Suite
New to the suite is a secure email client for both iOS and Android platforms, providing safeguards to users’ email, calendar, address book and to-do lists. Administrators are able to configure multiple policies specific to individual groups of users, including Exchange server and user names, passcode requirements, SSL requirements, copy and paste restrictions, widget controls, and synchronization and attachment size limits. This new free secure email client may be easily configured and controlled through the Mobile Management Suite console.
Single sign-on across wrapped apps
With the suite’s new single sign-on capability, end users are now only required to login once for access across multiple wrapped apps. Administrators are also able to apply controls to this feature, such as designating time allowances for a single sign-on session. Authentication sources include LDAP and SAML, plus new integrations with Symantec O3 and CA Siteminder. The benefit of single sign-on is two-fold – it improves the end user experience by simplifying the authentication process and it improves security by enabling broader usage of authentication controls. Multiple authentications may be centrally managed more easily and tied to changes in group policies and authorizations.
SSL policing and URL whitelisting for secure app connections
Much of today’s business productivity relies on third-party apps on mobile devices. Although these apps provide key functionality, they are not always designed or able to deliver data protection once it leaves the device. By adding SSL policing to the app-level policies and enforcing URL whitelist rules, data in motion will be encrypted and guaranteed to only be delivered to the server or service preconfigured by the business.
With these recent enhancements, the Symantec Mobile Management Suite – a single solution for mobile device management, mobile application management and mobile security – addresses a broader range of mobile productivity use cases, while also meeting the demands for business data protection and personal privacy. Competitive technologies, such as sandboxing and mobile virtual machines, force a compromise on user productivity, privacy or both. Symantec doesn’t believe in “balancing” the productivity and flexibility needs of users against the data protection requirements of IT, or compromising on either charter; both must be executed to the highest degree. This is the secure coexistence of professional and personal that Symantec is delivering, all through a single, integrated solution.
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