Smartphone Security: How To Manage Rogue Mobile Devices
Posted by
Eric Zeman
May 30, 2008
There was a time when only the IT shop had the smarts to hook a smartphone into the enterprise network and grant it access to services such as mobile email. Today, that's just not the case. Just about any average Joe can run to his local wireless retailer, buy a smartphone, and have it configured to receive his enterprise email before lunch the next day. That should scare you.
There's no arguing against the power of smartphones. They are great enablers of productivity and can help the busy professional stay on top of office communications when he or she is not there. Smartphones are slowly becoming an enterprise necessity, but they are a tool that can just as easily expose your business to a bevy of threats.
For those not schooled in the risks, smartphones are the back-door deployment that can provide hackers -- or the competition -- with access to your network. The good news is that there are myriad tools for IT to use the thwart both sanctioned and unsanctioned mobile deployments from putting your business on the line.
Employees: Your Biggest Threat
In order to keep up with the Joneses, Jim, sales guy extraordinaire, went out one weekend and bought himself a Windows Mobile smartphone. Using the simple Microsoft tools, he finagled it to get his work email synced to the device all by himself.
