Confidence: It’s rather amazing what you can accomplish in both your personal and business life when you have it. And it’s equally frustrating how you can hold yourself back from progress when you don’t. The influence of confidence and security on mindset and, ultimately, performance can’t be understated.
In team sports, for example, great defense is a major driver of confidence. With the NHL and NBA Finals kicking off this week you’ll doubtless hear an age-old sports quote: “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships,” and it’s definitely a quote that has stood up to the test of time. A disciplined and consistent defense gives a team the faith to go on the attack more freely and score the points they need to win the game. “D-E-F-E-N-S-E!”, as we like to chant at the game is security, and security breeds confidence.
This is also true in the business world, and one of the main factors currently playing out in the way businesses are handling digital transformation. In the enterprise mobility world, confidence and security are fundamental to the strategy CIOs and CISOs pursue in maximizing the competitive value of mobilizing workflows. There’s also the flip side to that scenario. Just how mobile corporate business processes are enabled is equally influenced by the barriers that security fears instill.
Ideally, you’d like to remove as many restrictions from mobile employees and teleworkers as possible; give them access to the most popular and in-demand apps, and ultimately to the rich level of data that provides actionable insight, enhances productivity, yields value and generates revenue. But the plethora of consumer devices owned by your employees do not make for a safe playground for business data to be in.
- Securing Data on Devices Means You’re Playing Not to Lose
Malware, OS vulnerabilities and malicious apps litter mobile endpoints and threaten to steal data and jeopardize compliance. That doesn’t include the insider threats from disgruntled employees or lost and stolen devices. Hackers realizing the value that can be gleaned from financial, healthcare, legal and payment data aren’t playing by the rulebook in their goal to acquire lucrative assets. With such critical data laying in enemy territory, it’s no wonder BYOD programs have barely scratched their potential until now.
So how have enterprises come to grips with these security risks? Not very confidently. If you look at the way mobile device management (MDM) policies have played out for everyone involved, we’re hardly talking about a winning combination. Enforcing rigid security policies, locks, and data wipe policies on personally-owned smartphones is hurting BYOD adoption and compliance, not helping it. Employees turn to preferred solutions – permitted or not – just so they can do the work that MDM software was supposed to facilitate. “Secure Containers”, the foundation on which MDM security is built, have been exposed numerous times for their insufficient ability to thwart sophisticated decryption techniques.
How much more secure then, is app-level security? Mobile application management (MAM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) vendors claim to be the nuanced solution to the mobile app security question. But app wrapping applications are still installed on the employee’s personal device via a MAM agent, inside of a container. While this add an extra layer of security, it doesn’t change the fundamentals: enterprise apps and data still rest on a wide variety of hardware you don’t own and therefore can’t fully control.
- The Home Court Advantage: Why Location Matters
MDM and MAM approaches don’t go far enough in giving enterprises the confidence to embrace unfettered mobile app deployment because your data still isn’t resting on home territory; your enterprise infrastructure. This forces many to play it safe by settling for less mobility, and sticking to email and calendar apps on BYOD devices. That simply won’t cut it as we head further into the age where smartphones, tablets and wearables are the new PCs. Enterprises suffering from “security insecurity” will be held back in critical business arenas and consequently lose customers and market share. Finding a better way to unlock teleworking is therefore a necessity.
- Playing to Win with Remote Virtual Devices
Imagine you could move your net, not only off the field, but out of the arena entirely. Not very fair for your opponents is it? By using Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI), you can do just that and leave no trace of data for attackers to exploit. VMI essentially mirrors a virtual mobile device on to your employee devices as a display. One remote platform allows organizations to select any Android app in the market. The sensitive nature of proprietary or client data no longer has to undermine mobility and constrict choice. Your employees can access the best tools for the job within a seamless virtual workspace that doesn’t limit their personal device or infringe on privacy.
That’s the confidence enterprises will need going forward to maximize mobile information with the peace of mind to shine competitively.