Email data protection specialist ZixCorp introduced ZixOne, a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) mobile email application designed to help solve the diverging needs of protecting corporate data in email, while allowing employees to maintain privacy and control of their personal devices.
The platform delivers email data protection in the form of a mobile app that enables corporate email access without allowing the data to reside on an employee’s personal device where it has greater potential for compromise. The approach is designed to provide a secure mobile email environment that is familiar and acceptable to mobile users. If the device is lost or stolen, ZixOne can disable access to corporate email from that device.
After entering a passcode, employees read, compose, reply and forward corporate email as usual. Their business calendar and contacts remain intact and are accessible through the app. In addition, employees can view attachments from the exchange server.
“Many organizations have learned from bring your own device (BYOD) projects that the success or failure of IT choices hinges upon user acceptance of the solution and whether it’s perceived as having a productive and pleasant user experience,” Trent Henry, vice president, of identity and security for IT research firm Gartner, said in a statement.
ZixOne aims to meet the users’ desire to keep corporate IT away from their devices while giving IT the ability to secure content and meet compliance needs, with access to work email in a secure, user-friendly environment. It allows users to stay productive while preserving device independence.
“Never allowing corporate email to reside on a personal device is the most secure way to manage business data,” Rick Spurr, ZixCorp’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Risk is eliminated because companies do not have to manage thousands of email and attachment copies, since they never leave corporate control. For IT managers and compliance officers, ZixOne relieves the tremendous burden BYOD has placed on their organizations.”
ZixOne is scheduled for commercial availability on Sept. 3, 2013, and will be priced per employee, instead of per device. The product is in beta testing by ZixCorp customers, which represent a variety of industries, including financial services, insurance, health care and government.
Accessing corporate email on personal devices poses the greatest security risk among all mobile business applications because of its frequent use on devices that were not built for enterprise operations. Analytics firm Forrester Research recently estimated that 78 percent of all U.S. active email users would access their email through mobile email clients by 2017.
Security is both the top concern and top measure for success for enterprises implementing BYOD programs, according to The BYOD and Mobility Security Report, which surveyed 1,650 information security professionals around the world through Holger Schulze’s Information Security Community group on LinkedIn.
The survey, sponsored by endpoint management and security solutions specialist Lumension Security, revealed mandatory use of encryption was cited as a risk-control measure for mobile devices by 40 percent of respondents. Encryption is considered best equipped to deal with lost or stole devices, which was the third-ranked security concern, after lost data and unauthorized access.