How mobile devices may decrease workplace security
Workplaces have increased the number of mobile devices within the enterprise because they can bring speed and improvement to work processes.
Mobile device protection has not kept up with cyber defense because of their different operating systems. Therefore they offer a greater likelihood of attack by cyber criminals. Many also do not secure their smartphones or tablets with antivirus software or take simple precautions such as enabling password protection. Finding and being aware of attacks may take days or weeks to solve.
Within the organization, cyber threats have increased due to mobile access and for the enterprise that cost is measured in dollars.
Reasons for increase risks include:
- less visibility by the devices once they leave the corporate network
- signature base technology lacks speed to protect against dynamic threats
- a single attack can compromise an organization’s security.
These attacks can occur in the following ways:
- You connect to a free Wi-Fi in your coffee shop and a hacker hijacks your session, takes your credentials, puts an exploit on your phone and sends an email in your name.
- You receive an email seemingly from your boss but in reality it is a fake. You open the PDF and allowing malicious code into your phone compromising access to your cloud, applications and other services.
- You download a mobile game which gets by your anti-virus protection but the game has a trigger to download malicious code which activates an elevation of privileges to give the hacker control over your phone.
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) is the set of people, processes and technology focused on managing mobile devices, wireless networks, and other mobile computing services in a business context. EMM has been found to be inadequate and so new solutions are being researched.
One company, Zimperium, uses patented machine learning technology to prevent attacks. This technology:
- Monitors the entire device regardless of the attack entry point.
- It does not rely on signatures
- Is immune to evasion techniques such as polymorphic malware or download techniques
- Can defend against known and unknown threats.
- Will find and fix flaws in the system.
Contact Perry to make an appointment for a consult
Are you or your business interested in implementing Enterprise Mobility Management, or at the very least, implement security of some sort? Contact Perry’s Computer Repair at 443-783-2269 to set up a consult and to learn even more about prevention techniques.
