McAfee's three-pronged mobile security strategy is a mix of existing services and new products, including the McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management software.
McAfee
unveiled its latest approach to securing data on mobile devices with several
new products.
These
new mobile security products will focus on protecting mobile devices, data and
applications, McAfee said Sept. 20. The centerpiece of the three-pronged strategy
is the McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management software, along with McAfee's
ePolicy Orchestrator and its Global Threat Intelligence network that have both
been extended to support mobile devices.
With
increasing consumerization of IT, enterprises are being asked to support
devices running operating systems other than the corporate standard, including
Android and iOS. A recent study from Dell-KACE
found that organizations are being forced to support a more complex environment
to ensure that sensitive data and applications remain protected regardless of
how employees are connecting to the network.
"Mobile
device adoption is exploding, and unfortunately, so are the threats targeting
mobile platforms," said Josh Dasher, senior director for mobile security
at McAfee.
McAfee
announced the McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management software to allow
administrators to apply the same security controls to mobile devices that are
used on laptops and PCs. McAfee EMM can also apply policies on both
corporate-issued and personal mobile smartphones and tablets.
IT
staffs can also implement anti-theft and -loss features such as remote backup,
lock and wipe to prevent sensitive data from falling "into the wrong
hands" in case of theft or loss, McAfee said. To prevent data leakage,
McAfee EMM can be used to ensure that devices without proper encryption in
place and jailbroken or otherwise rooted devices cannot connect to the
corporate network.
"Additional
data protection technologies are under development including the separation of
business and personal data," McAfee said.
McAfee
VirusScan Mobile software will provide anti-malware protection, and McAfee SiteAdvisor
will protect users from landing on malicious Websites. With SiteAdvisor, users will
be alerted immediately if the site they are navigating to is potentially
dangerous, such as a phishing page or one that is booby-trapped for drive-by downloads.
Just
securing the device and making it hard for nonauthorized users to read the data
is not enough, especially in light of the number of malicious applications that
are out to intercept sensitive details, harvest personal data and transmit
information to third-party individuals.
"The
emerging mobile malware we are seeing today is just the beginning," Dasher
said.
The
McAfee App Alert, currently in beta, informs users how installed apps are
accessing the user data. Many of the apps often require more permissions than
necessary, and users are not always clear what information is visible to other
apps. App-scanning technologies also exist in app stores, so that the
storefront can verify the apps are clean and safe for customers to download and
use.
In
addition, the company is expanding the scope of its Global Threat Intelligence
network to include reputation information for mobile apps. With this addition,
it will be possible to identify apps with a bad "reputation" as
malicious. Bad reputation will include apps that put privacy at risk by
exposing sensitive information that could potentially be exploited by other
apps.
Considering
that the volume of malware targeting Android devices jumped 76 percent last
quarter, securing mobile devices, applications and the data stored on them has
become a priority, McAfee said.
"It's
a whole new world and a challenge for IT to craft security policies that make
sense while updating their infrastructure," Dasher said.
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