Category: Security

Michael Gagnon

With all the risk associated with robbing a bank, bank robbers make sure the treasure is worth the effort. Robbers absolutely insure there is plenty of money in the vault, before they execute their “hit”. But you have to see what you are going to steal in order to make the heist successful!

What if the money they thought was there…is not? Not a good risk/return prospect for the robber but an ingenious strategy for the bank. When robbers learn that there is no money in the vault, there will be no robbery. As Jerry McGuire famously said, ” Show me the money”.

But what has this got to do with BYOD and CPOE mobile devices? Mobile devices rely on data in transit and data at rest to support full mobility enablement. REST API calls insure that local data caches have all the data needed for seamless & native experiences. Conventional mobile security practices rely on strong encryption, application wrapping, containers & MDM/EMM agents to negate threat vectors from inside and outside the organization. So far so good?

Without corporate data on a mobile device, what exactly is an attacker going to steal? Threat vectors and mobile device perimeters sink to zero when no data resides on the device or in transit. As it was with our Bank analogy, you cannot steal what you cannot see. If there is no data residing on a BYOD or any mobile enabled device, there is zero incentive for an attacker to engage in sophisticated vulnerability execution and hacking. No Data to see… No incentive to steal!

By using NUBO’s Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI), you leave no trace of data for attackers to exploit on any of your mobile devices. Zero data is required in Nubo powered sessions making them impervious to attack. VMI runs virtual Android mobile devices at scale in a secure AWS Cloud or Premise based platform. Mobile apps are streamed to an employee or contingent workers device using an intelligent remote display protocol that adapts to Wifi & Wireless connectivity/latency in real time.

Apps are mirrored to the local UI with a flat Nubo client compatible with iOS and Android OS’s providing a natural, seamless experience from anywhere employees work.

Point, Click, Work with “Intelligence Grade” security is Nubo VMI.

VMI platforms allows organizations to select any free, paid or custom Android app in the market. The sensitive nature of proprietary or client data no longer has to undermine mobility and constrict choice. Using Nubo VMI, work gets done where and when it needs to with no ability to hackers to compromise security because they cannot steal what they cannot see with Nubo VMI.

Employees & contingent workers have access to the most actionable knowledge in the organization because of VMI’s “Zero Data on Device” promise. B2E productivity & customer experience will experience incredible acceleration because the most relevant and contextual information is delivered to mobile devices without fear of compromise by the bad guys. Nubo VMI can power digitalization & transformation programs in ways traditional approaches cannot.

Nubo VMI creates a more simplified, secure and smarter approach mobility enablement by providing zero incentive for hackers to attack mobile devices that have “no money in the bank”.

Israel Lifshitz

Different. The word can arouse quite the spectrum of reactions. Excitement. Curiosity. Fear. Rejection. And everything in between. Like tasting asparagus for the first time, to welcoming that new spectacled kid in school, our initial assumptions often end up being quite different than our impressions once we learn more about that new person, place or thing we thought we had all figured out.
These assumptions are natural and they follow us into our workplaces and into the business world, where we’re consistently bombarded about the newest, the latest and greatest products and services. In the world of IT security, that’s especially true when you’re exposed to emerging technologies that take on a completely different philosophy than the current standard.
With disruptive technologies like Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI), questions and assumptions are to be expected until people are actually able to get beneath the surface and see the how this approach changes the larger picture. A recent article did a great job of expressing some of these assumptions, chief amongst them the view that VMI isn’t actually more secure than other approaches in the market.
I’m all too happy to dispel this myth and shed light on how VMI impacts your security capabilities. In that article, a reference to the teen classic Mean Girls likened VMI to a certain catch-phrase that the popular ‘Queen Bee’ was sure that would never catch on, so her followers should just, you know, drop it. The author went on to contend that running remote apps in the data center doesn’t ensure higher security, because instead you could pave the road to your enterprise network for attackers.
Sure, hackers are going to try to breach your enterprise network regardless of where your sensitive corporate data rests, be it wrapped in an app and insulated inside a container on the end user’s device, or installed on a cloud or on-premises server. Password/passcode security will always be a risk on end user devices. But the overarching fact of life in mobile security is this: the weakest link in your network, and by a huge margin, is the link you don’t own – the mobile devices of your employees. In today’s BYOD world, you can’t restrict which apps employees can download or install intrusive policies infringe on their freedom or privacy. What you can do is re-locate your prized assets to a much more fortified location.
With VMI, enterprises own the OS and can therefore apply additional patches and encryption to mobile apps before they’re deployed. Your enterprise servers are much better equipped and much more invested in, and that’s for good reason. They’re also much better suited to deal with threats than the virtual jungle of BYOD devices connecting to your network and the unsecured personal apps running inside of them.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued a draft guidance for telework, remote access and BYOD security. The recommendation? That government agencies use VMI for all teleworking employees.
It’s no coincidence that VMI is being adopted by the DoD and public safety agencies, financial and legal firms and healthcare providers – these industries have the most to lose in case of a data breach. Skeptics at first, they applied a critical eye, but what they found in the end was how this innovative approach enhances their security (and almost every aspect of BYOD management) above and beyond their current EMM solutions.
So if you’ve seen Mean Girls, you may remember what happens with the popular and shallow queen bee who judges the new girl harshly… she doesn’t wind up on top now does she? That new kid may appear odd and it may not seem advantageous to befriend them at first. But often it’s that kid that proves the skeptics wrong and ends up being the biggest success.

David Abbou

While a top priority for most organizations today, the threat posed by mobile data security breaches holds more severe consequences for some industries than others. Right at the top of that mountain you’ll find the defense agencies and military infrastructure that are responsible for our national security. When it comes to national defense, any security slip up or exploited gap can end in casualties and jeopardize the safety of both military staff and the citizens they are trying to protect.

Cybersecurity attacks have been a part of geopolitical warfare for decades, but as these threats have extended to mobile devices, they have surpassed the security capabilities of commercial technologies and pose unique challenges for military communications and command and control (C2) operations.

Today’s defense personnel must have the capabilities to collaborate with their colleagues and share highly sensitive, often mission-critical intel from wherever they are, be it in the field or in the control room. Allowing such sensitive data to be accessed on mobile devices and applications heightens both the risks and the challenges, and requires tailored solutions for both enterprise hardware and software. Therefore the entire approach is incomparable to any mobility project in the private sector.

One Device That Can Do it All

To give defense personnel the best tools available they need a device possessing these qualities and functions:

Rugged: Rugged mobile devices that can operate in harsh environments are the standard for soldiers in the field. They allow soldiers to navigate terrain with a much more comfortable device, and hopefully let the military phase out the brick-sized radios and paper maps which have long been the norm. They are also built to prevent physical intrusion and for device memory to be acquired if the phone were to be taken apart.

Customized OS: The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) still utilizes hardware from consumer manufacturers such as Samsung, but these are modified rugged versions. The Android OS for its versatility, but it is then hardened to allow for additional layers of security.

PTT Voice & Messaging: For starters, these devices must be able to provide staff with reliable basic features like voice and messaging. A must-have function required by many military and law enforcement clients is Push-To-Talk (PTT) communication, which allows one person to connect to single users or active talk groups almost instantly with a single button press and ensure that time-sensitive information is communicated without delay. Similarly instant messaging must be carried out with the same speed and reliability, and with multi-user chat capability as many situations render calling impractical.

VoIP Network: Defense agencies are able to use the data from commercial carriers, but wireless communications over public radio and telephone lines can be intercepted too easily, which is why the DoD uses their own encrypted VoIP network.

Military App Deployment & Security Challenges

In addition to standard apps for email, calendar and contacts, specialized apps must be provided to various military, law enforcement and even rescue operations staff to help them fulfill mission objectives. These include mapping apps to navigate the battlefield according to plan, as well as command and control programs. Securing the apps and data on these devices is of paramount importance. If data is breached or intercepted while in transit the enemy could discover your whereabouts and track your movements, compromising the battle and inflicting casualties. This is where the greatest challenge could lie as far as classified mobility is concerned. A more resilient OS still cannot prevent cached history from leaving a digital footprint on the device. And with governments engaging in cyber warfare and potentially catastrophic cyber terrorism the new reality, even the most resilient device security and encryption available can be cracked. In an environment where the stakes could not be higher, a unique approach to app deployment is a necessity.

The Emerging Solution: Virtualized Mobile Apps

Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) may be a relatively recent trend in the private sector, but it has been recognized by defense agencies as a higher level of security for quite a while and the reasons why are pretty clear: zero data on devices. Under VMI mobile apps running in the data center are deployed onto devices as a display using a thin client app. The user works with the apps the same way they would with a native mobile app stored on the device, but they are kept behind the military’s firewall where they are best secured.

Being able to manage and distribute apps from a secured data center means there is no critical data which can be compromised from devices regardless of whether they are lost or stolen. The device leaves nothing for hackers, no matter how sophisticated, to retrieve. This removes the need to allocate significant IT resources towards managing device security.

This elevated security removes the need for defense agencies to invest in making every conceivable app military-grade. In addition to custom apps created in-house, they can now provide access to popular COTS apps that are already effective for inter-staff communication.

Look for VMI to become the standard for secure mobility in the defense arena going forward.