Network professionals walk a tight rope, as secure mobile computing is a complex business. Mobile computing, especially when associated with the plethora of handheld devices on the market today, is a network manager's headache when it comes to security. The physical devices themselves have to be protected, along with the data stored on them, the users and the network connections, especially wireless.
If security measures are unnecessarily strict, they're not cost effective for the enterprise. More importantly, users faced with needlessly complex or burdensome measures may ignore or bypass them.
Recently, a unit of Telecom Intelligence Group, Parsippany, N.J., identified a variety of wireless security challenges - mobile client devices can be lost or stolen and then hacked; wireless networking creates an 'open door' to the corporate net, and wireless data can be intercepted; all of the elements, device, data, user, network have to be secured to avoid a weak link; and doing so adds costs and complexity, and may require changes to applications.
Trial and error for mobile security is common practice. "Most organization start with a point solution to correct a specific, or perceived, problem and only then discover that they hadn't adequately addressed security and management," says Jack Gold, president of J. Gold Associates, a consulting firm. Instead, Gold says, the enterprise should be thinking early about a comprehensive security strategy for any mobile computing project.
Several organizations, particularly healthcare, have turned to specialized mobile security products for tablets, BlackBerries and PDAs in order to add VPN support, detect unauthorized applications, encrypt data at rest or block access by USB devices.
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