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NetMotion Wireless announced an intelligent mobile VPN designed to connect, manage, and secure applications, containers, and devices in corporate enterprise mobility management (EMM) environments across major mobile and desktop platforms.
The VPN enables organizations to manage access from Apple iPhones and iPads, Windows tablets and laptops, and Android tablets and phones from a single solution on a per-application basis, the company said.
Administrators can configure one or two-factor authentication for teams and individuals with whatever method is best, and IT can set access policies by department, seniority or device type.
“Old security models are built around protecting resources at a specific location. W with mobile, location is irrelevant,” Steve Fallin, senior product manager at NetMotion Wireless, told eWEEK. “Business are realizing tremendous productivity gains from mobile, and highly capable devices and apps are now in the hands of users, making it easy for them to bypass IT if necessary to get their job done. In order to be successful, security teams have to deploy easy to use technologies that enable business productivity while ensuring they still maintain the visibility, control, and diagnostic functionality they need to secure the mobile enterprise.”
Configuration settings and policies in the platform respond automatically to changes in Active Directory, and mobility administrators can pre-configure and automatically assign authentication profiles, access policies, device settings, and more, based on the operating system, according to NetMotion.
“Over and over again we hear from our customers that users will bypass hard to use applications and overly restrictive security measures and that bootleg IT is incredibly easy with mobile devices and apps,” Fallin explained. “If the promise of mobile as a discipline is improved productivity, enterprises must deploy solutions that delight users while not giving up the control they need to manage their business. If they don’t, their investment in mobile is wasted.”
Mobility now offers a RESTful Server application programming interface (API) to provide easier integration into corporate dashboards and management solutions.
The latest release also simplifies over-the-air updates for Windows devices, and brings security features to Windows laptops and tablets that previously only existed for Apple and Android devices.
For example, it automatically detects when hotspots require logging on to a Web portal for access, and facilitates log-on without disabling the VPN, preventing so called ‘Evil Twin’ and related attacks.
“Mobile is all about decentralization, it has turned the traditional IT security models on their head. In the future, effective security technologies will fade into the background from the user’s perspective,” Fallin said. “In successful organizations, IT teams will be seen as enablers of business and trusted experts on getting things done.”
He said IT teams can get out ahead of this trend by deploying flexible mobile security solutions that deliver transparent user experiences as reliable as the sunrise, while at the same time leaving themselves with the tools they need to monitor, secure, and troubleshoot their mobile deployment.
“An example of this would be an intelligent mobile VPN that provides high-performance, transparent, resilient connectivity with policy based controls that can manage access by user, device, network, and application for all of the enterprise’s mobile platforms and laptops,” he explained.