Device Encryption and Management

Samsung SAFE devices can be encrypted, can be managed by a host of enterprise-class MDM platforms and showed that, on the whole, they are ready for business use.

My tests showed that complex password policies truly need to balance the human factors with security concerns. For example, my complex encryption password forced me to toggle back and forth between versions of the virtual keyboard in order to find all the complex characters that my security policy mandated. In the end, that could incite some justified end-user ire.

Samsung SAFE devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III shown here that I used in my tests of the platform, can be encrypted at Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit key length. The process can take some time to complete, but on my new test phone, it was completed in less than 10 minutes.

The first step in seeing how my Samsung SAFE phone worked in an MDM environment was to enroll it in my AirWatch MDM system. This involved downloading an agent from the Google Play Store and then following the instructions that were emailed to the test system.

Once my test phone was enrolled in the AirWatch system, I had to acknowledge all the ways that it could control the device. The list is comprehensive and should satisfy all but the most paranoid security managers.

The AirWatch agent collected a comprehensive set of data about my test phone and accurately reported that information to the central management console.

The AirWatch agent collected a comprehensive set of data about my test phone and accurately reported that information to the central management console.

After all was said and done, using my Samsung SAFE test phone was slightly less convenient but eminently more secure.

The AirWatch console (I used a hosted instance of the MDM platform) accurately reported the state of my Samsung SAFE test phone based on my policy requirements.

In this sample report, you can see that the AirWatch agent is reporting on the battery state in my test phone. There are a bevy of reports in the system that range from phone logs to general usage statistics.