Mobile Workers and BYOD are Here to Stay: Is Your Data Secure

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The way business professionals work has changed dramatically over the last several years, and continues to at an ever-growing rate. They are on the go and working from different locations across all hours using many devices to allow for a work/life balance. We have become an “always-on” society.

Workers are also doing more work remotely, whether it be at a coffee shop, on the train to work, or on a business trip from a hotel room. People want to stay in touch wherever they are and whenever they need to. They also want to use the device they like, whether it is a smartphone, tablet or laptop. In addition, they also need access to the applications they choose to use, some from their work, others of their own. And most importantly, they need access to the data required to do their jobs, whether it is online through the Internet or behind their company’s firewall on the intranet.

Companies clearly need to find a way to provide their mobile workers secure access to any data from any device at any time. That said, companies’ IT organizations need to understand the risks they are opening themselves up to if they don’t take necessary precautions including data loss, malware, device proliferation, rogue applications, lost and stolen devices with data onboard, credential theft, etc.

Today, IT can implement a number of solid mobile workforce management and mobile security management tools to help secure mobile data and devices, such as:

  • Mobile Device Management (MDM)
  • Mobile Application Management (MAM)
  • Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network (SSL VPN)
  • Network Access Control (NAC)

Learn more about what the industry is seeing around providing secure mobile access over BYOD by reading our executive brief, “Ready or not, mobile workers and BYOD are here to stay.”

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Become the “Department of Yes” for BYOD Using SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 8.5

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One of the most frightening IT nightmares is hearing employees say their mobile devices or laptops were lost or stolen. Cyber-attacks and mobile threats are at the highest they ever been and will continue soar. Customers large and small face cyber espionage. Today, at SonicWall Security PEAK16 – “Come for Knowledge. Leave with Power” – at the Hotel Excelsior in Malta; we are announcing the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 Series OS 8.5. This product’s new features and enhancements offer comprehensive security; it allows IT administrators to quickly and easily deliver secure mobile access and roles based privileges. Remote workers using managed or unmanaged devices will have secure, fast and easy access. I am honored to share this news at our highly anticipated, annual conference for European security value-added resellers (VARs). For the next two days, we are meeting for insightful one-on-one dialogue with top VARs business and technical executives.

The VARS are at the core of our ecosystem. They deliver the expertise to chief security officers (CISOs) with speed and agility, without compromising company security. This is at the heart of our worldwide campaign, the “Department of Yes.” When you partner with SonicWall Security, you have the power and support of the world’s leading security provider for your customers — while opening up limitless opportunities for your business.

“We at CETSAT have been working with the SonicWall family of products for over 15 years. SonicWall has always been able to maintain a commanding relevance to business and today is no different. With IT security increasingly on the mind of every business owner, director and staff responsible for technology, the SonicWall Security portfolio of products leads the way in helping companies of all sizes to reduce risk from cyber threats and prevent disruption to business. CETSAT look forward to a continuing and beneficial relationship with this great world brand.”

— Durgan Cooper, president of CETSAT

Peak16 attendees and press will be introduced to SonicWall Secure Mobile Access OS 8.5’s capacity to allow small to medium sized businesses to ensure workers can be securely productive anywhere and on any device. Becoming part of the “Department of Yes” gives IT administrators the flexibility to enable BYOD while protecting business assets and the organization from today’s shape-shifting threats. The SMA 100 Series is compatible with devices across Windows, iOS, Mac OS X, Android, Linux, Kindle Firewall and Chrome. We provide mobile users secure access to network resources including shared folders, client-server applications, intranet sites, email and remote and virtual desktop services. Our proven and award-winning solutions enable IT to configure polices for context-aware authentication, granting access only to trust devices and authorized users. Some of the innovative enhancements of this release include:

  • Policy wizards – Easy wizards to deploy policies for OWA, ActiveSync, Outlook Anywhere and Auto-discover.
  • HTML5 Enhancements – Delivers end users with a rich access experience within their choice of web browser, eliminating their need to download, install and maintain additional software on their systems.
  • Virtual Host Multicore Support – Increases resource capacity of host resources that can be accessed by SMA giving greater reliability and performance at higher concurrencies for connected users.

Also, noteworthy recent enhancements to SonicWall SMA 100 series include:

  • Web Application Firewall (WAF) Enhancements ‒ Securing internal web applications from remote users, SonicWall’s award-winning WAF engine has been enhanced to detect against additional exploits and threats. This ensures that the confidentiality of data and internal web services remain uncompromised if a malicious or rogue authenticated user should gain access.
  • Geo IP Detection and Botnet Protection ‒ Grants customers with a mechanism to allow or restrict user access from various geographical locations.
  • End Point Control (EPC) Enhancements ‒ Enhancements to the SMA EPC engine provide greater assurance that the endpoint accessing the network is trusted and not malicious.

SonicWall Security EMEA PEAK16 also offers a wealth of state-of-the-art keynotes by our executives (including yours truly), as well as technical and business breakouts that open up the world of the Department of Yes. These jam-packed sessions address our end-to-end security, including our identity-aware firewalls and more:

We are delighted that our security channel partners are joining us for SonicWall Security PEAK16 in Malta. I encourage you to engage live with us by following the ongoing discussion on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook at @SonicWall with the conference hashtags #EMEAPEAK16, and post your comments below.

Protect Remote Workforce Anywhere, Anytime on Any Device

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Every day, we hear terrifying headlines such as this one – 27 million doctors’ mobile devices at high risk of malware. Our recent SonicWall Threat Report confirms the increase in malware targeted to Android devices. Fortunately today we are announcing the news of our latest  SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 11.4 OS and the SMA 1000 Series to arm your IT organization with greater security, scalability and ability to abide by compliance standards. With this launch, we deliver more power and speed to remote workers to securely access corporate data via policy-based access on any mobile device.

Our new  SonicWall SMA 11.4 offers numerous state of the art features. The dynamic Global Traffic Optimizer (GTO) will enable thousands of concurrent users to have protected remote access capabilities. Our new Regulatory Compliance standards meet the strictest security for the latest government regulations. The innovative Management API will deliver enhanced workflow; and the SAML 2.0 Support will save valuable remote workforce time. Enterprises like the NFL-champion Denver Broncos are using SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA). I hope you will explore what this solution can do for you and your mobile strategy.

“We increased our return on investment by using SonicWall SRA with SuperMassive next-gen firewall because we offload VPN traffic from our main firewall to the SRA.” Russ Trainor, vice president of Technology, Denver Broncos.

Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 11.4 OS brings the following additional functionality enhancements to this series.

  • Global Traffic Optimizer (GTO) – provides a turnkey approach to delivering massive global scalability of concurrent users while continuing to maintain secure access. This allows customers to better address secure access of data as they face an ever-growing workforce, company expansion to different locations both within country and globally, and proliferation of device types used by workers.
  • Regulatory Compliance – ensures security compliance with the most stringent industry and government regulations, like “Federal Information Processing Standards” (FIPS) and Suite B cipher support. This is crucial in highly regulated organizations to maintain compliance (e.g., Government, Financial, Healthcare, etc.).
  • Management API – gives access to SonicWall’s SMA API. This enables enhanced workflow, orchestration and automation, improving customers’ operational processes, increasing productivity and reducing costs.
  • Enhanced SAML 2.0 support – creates a great end-user experience by allowing Single Sign-On (SSO) eliminating individual sign on to SaaS applications. This saves time used to spend in logging onto multiple applications, one at a time.

These key innovations are critical because mobile users are often using the same device for both business and personal tasks.  Consequently, businesses are at a growing risk of multiple security breaches such as:

  • Unauthorized users gaining access to company networks and systems from lost or stolen devices
  • Malware-infected devices acting as a conduit to infect company systems
  • Interception of company data “in-flight” on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks
  • Loss of business data stored on devices if rogue personal apps or unauthorized users gain access

SonicWall’s Secure Mobile Access (SMA) portfolio solves these problems our customers are facing by providing mobile and remote workers using smart phones, tablets or laptops (whether managed or unmanaged) with policy-enforced SSL VPN access to mission-critical applications, data and resources without compromising security.

In case you missed this, the following key functionality enhancements have already been added across the SMA 1000 line that are especially noteworthy: Centralized Management System (CMS), HTML Clients and Proxies and Personal Device Authorization. 

This entire impressive operating system runs on the SonicWall SMA 1000 Series Models: SRA EX6000, SMA 6200, SMA 8200V (Virtual Appliance), SRA EX7000, SMA 7200, and SRA EX9000.

Our customers are already benefiting from these powerful anytime, anywhere on any device security solutions.

“With SonicWall, we can stay at the forefront of this changing landscape. We have a great business relationship with SonicWall, and its customer service and engineering support was outstanding,” said our customere C.J. Daab, Technology Support Coordinator, Hall County School.

Learn more detail on  SonicWall Secure Mobile Access data sheet.

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SonicWall Releases Secure Mobile Access Models 200 and 400

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The exponential proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace, both employer issued and personally owned, has increased the demand on businesses to enable secure mobile access to company applications, data and resources. Often, mobile users are using the same device for both business and personal use, resulting in the intermingling of business and personal data and applications. Consequently, businesses are at a growing risk of multiple security breaches such as:

  • Unauthorized users gaining access to company networks and systems from lost or stolen devices
  • Malware infected devices acting as a conduit to infect company systems
  • Interception of company data “in-flight” on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks
  • Loss of business data stored on devices if rogue personal apps or unauthorized users gain access

Today, we have released  SonicWall’s answer to these challenges with the “SonicWall Secure Mobile Access” (SMA) 200 and 400. We are excited to further fortify and control the primary  SonicWall next-generation firewalls, by releasing SonicWall SMA solutions, which offer the following:

  • Provide mobile users secure access to allowed network resources including folders, applications, intranet, e-mail, etc.
  • Secure access across Windows, iOS, Mac OSX, Android, Kindle Fire, Linux & Chrome OS mobile devices
  • Allow administrators to easily configure security policies for context-aware authentication to grant access only to trusted devices and users
  • The SonicWall 100 Series models are rebranded as follows: SonicWall SMA 200, with support for up to 50 concurrent sessions, replaces the SonicWall SRA 1600 and the SonicWall SMA 400, with support for up to 250 concurrent sessions, replaces the SonicWall SRA 4600.

Our partners and customers have been participating in the beta for today’s release and appreciate the solution features. Together, we partner with our Value Added Resellers (VARs) to provide superior IT services worldwide. Peter Rennenkampff, at Fuelled Networks, was part of the recent beta, and he shares the following:

“We have several customers who will benefit from the enhanced platform support for SonicWall MobileConnect in this latest release. Businesses have to contend with the BYOD trend and increase security at the same time. The SMA platform addresses these issues with capabilities such as the End User Authorization, Granular Access Control and enhanced performance. As an established VAR, we have customers that already rely on the SonicWall SRA solution. The new SMA platform will immediately allow our customers to be better connected, more productive and greater control over who has access to valuable data.” said Peter Rennenkampff, Support Engineer, Fuelled Networks, Inc.

We invite you to see a live demo of our new solutions and join us at the booth 1-007 in the South Hall at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, CA from February 29th March 3rd . Follow us on Twitter at @SonicWallSecurity with hashtag #SonicWallGoverProtect to join the conversation. If you are virtual, see our new SMA via Live Demo and learn more: here.

The Future Looks Bright for Mobile Worker Productivity

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Managing and securing mobile data is about to get a whole lot easier. Mobile platform providers, historically focused on the consumer, are now investing heavily in new OS features that will seamlessly integrate with mobile management and security solutions and allow businesses to more easily enable mobile access to more data and resources without compromising security.

Historically, IT departments protected corporate networks and data by only allowing trusted devices and users to connect to the network. IT could limit the threat of data loss and malware by controlling and managing PC and laptop and software images and configurations. In the new mobile era, IT has limited control or management over devices. Workers are often independently choosing their smart-phones and tablets as well as the apps and services they use to address business and personal needs.

So, with limited mobile device control and management, how can IT keep company data secure while enabling mobile worker productivity?

The leading mobile platform providers recognize the challenge businesses face and are adding new features to make it easier to secure and manage business apps and data on devices, whether corporate or personally owned. And they’re partnering with third party mobile management and security providers to help give IT control to secure and manage the mobile data workflow. Key mobile platform features enabling mobile for business include:

1. Managed separation of business and personal apps and data

Mobile OS’s are architected to allow data to be easily shared by apps. While this ease-of-use and transparent interaction and sharing between apps is beneficial for personal use, it can be problematic for businesses that want to protect data. For example, many social apps mine contact lists from other apps and invite contacts to join their service. With this, confidential customer contact information stored in a business app could unintentionally be “shared” to a personal social app, leaking customer contact information and potentially damaging a business’s reputation or violating regulatory rules. Another risk, if a rogue app is downloaded to a device, mobile malware or vulnerabilities may be present that can steal data or provide an entry point for a cyber-attack.

To address these issues, the new generation of mobile operating systems is adding features that, with third party mobile management tools, will help better secure business apps and data on mobile devices. IT, with mobile user permission, will be able to more easily deploy and manage trusted mobile apps for business and enforce security policy to protect company data, while personal apps and data will be isolated from business apps, preventing data leakage. To meet mobile user demands for personal app and data privacy, IT will be restricted to only manage business apps and data. With these new built-in OS features, today’s proprietary secure containers that isolate and secure business apps and data on mobile devices, will be less necessary, helping to reduce IT cost and complexity.

2. Managed apps

To further support mobile for business, mobile platform providers are making it easier for app developers to build “managed apps”, apps that can be configured and managed by mobile management tools. For these apps, IT will be able to use third party mobile management tools to configure app level policies that affect the actions an app may take. For example, a managed email app implemented with the new mobile management control protocol could be remotely configured to only allow email and attachments to be viewed from the email app, and disallow copy, cut and print functionality to keep business data secure and encrypted within the app and not allow sharing with other apps.

3. App level VPN

Businesses today often deploy VPNs to securely connect mobile and remote workers with company networks and resources, a necessity to encrypt data in-flight and protect from data theft. However, when a device is used for business and personal use, if the VPN is enabled, personal traffic also uses the corporate VPN which can impact network bandwidth and contaminate backend resources. Ideally, to preserve corporate network bandwidth, only business apps and data should use the corporate VPN.

To address this need, mobile OS, security and management technologies are evolving to allow per app VPN capabilities. With per app VPN, security and management technology may be configured with policies to initiate a VPN whenever a business app launches such that business traffic from the mobile device travels through the VPN while personal traffic does not.

So, with these new mobile management and security capabilities, what should businesses do to accelerate mobile adoption and productivity?

Get ready for the next wave of mobile technology. For information on the management and security solutions you need to help enable mobile workers productivity while protecting from threats, read our eBook, Secure Mobile Access.

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Mobile Security Checklist to Minimize Risk

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The number of mobile devices in the workplace is exploding and with this, a new frontier for cyber-attack is emerging that poses a significant risk to business. As the great philosopher and strategist SunTze wrote, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.”

Threat analysts are finding that malware isn’t just a problem for laptops any more. For example, reports indicate that the CloudAtlas campaign, a sophisticated advanced persistent threat that initially targeted windows machines, has made its way to mobile platforms including Android, Apple IOS and Blackberry systems. Our own SonicWall Security Threat Research Center uncovered the Android counterpart of the CloudAtlas campaign. This malware masquerades itself as an update for the popular messenger app Whatsapp, and in turn, spies on a victim’s device to obtain sensitive data,such as texts, contacts and calendar information, and passes it back to the attacker, creating a huge business risk.

Could you, or one of your employees unknowingly have a mobile device infected with malware harvesting your confidential business data?

Fundamentally, there are two key business risks that you need to protect from as workers go mobile. The first, is theft or loss of mobile data. The second, is mobile devices becoming conduits for malware attacks that affect corporate systems and data. So what are the mobile threats you need to be aware of to protect your business?

Here’s a checklist of threats you need to be prepared to tackle in the mobile worker era:

  1. Lost and stolen devicesNo surprise here. If a device is lost or stolen, and corporate data was stored on the device, there’s a risk of confidential data loss. An even bigger risk, is a lost or stolen device being used to gain access to corporate data and apps on the back end. Significantly more data could be impacted if an unauthorized user with a lost or stolen mobile device gains access to the data center. This is particularly problematic for businesses subject to regulatory compliance.
  2. Mobile malware and vulnerabilitiesAnother concern is rogue apps downloaded to devices containing information-stealing malware, such as the CloudAltas threat discussed above, or vulnerabilities with devices, OS design and 3rd party apps. These threats provide entree for attacks and can lead to data theft and downtime. Again, this is a risk for data on the device, but potentially an even bigger risk if the device becomes a conduit for malware to infect backend data systems and cause data loss or downtime.
  3. Data leakage through 3rd party appsCorporate data and apps co-mingling with personal data and apps on devices can also create risk and lead to corporate data leaking, either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, many social apps mine contact lists from other apps and invite contacts to join their service. With this, confidential customer contact information stored in a business app could unintentionally be “shared” to a personal social app, leaking customer contact information and potentially damaging a business’s reputation or violating regulatory rules.
  4. Insecure Wi-FiLastly, the riskof man-in-the middle attacks. Attackers can snoop data if traffic is sent over unencrypted networks such as public wifi. Data in-flight is likely the pulse of the business. It likely contains fresh, sensitive data, and may even contain data subject to legal or regulatory requirements for confidentiality. If that data is intercepted, it could be damaging to the business. Although the relative quantity of data lost or stolen in case of in-flight traffic interception is likely small, the potential for damage is still there. So, to protect in-flight data from interception, data should be encrypted.

Mobile Security Solution

So, now that we reviewed the top threats, how can you prepare to win the mobile security battle to come? To protect from these threats, the best defense is a good offense.

Secure container and encryption technologies such as Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) can help isolate and secure business apps and data on mobile devices. This a great start, but company data and networks are still at risk if only on-device data protection is addressed. Security is an end-to-end mobile workflow challenge.

For comprehensive mobile security, in addition to EMM, deploy security and access control technologies in your IT infrastructure that authenticate users and interrogate devices, OSes, mobile apps and validate their integrity. Only grant VPN access to trusted users, devices and business apps to help protect from rogue access and malware attacks. Also deploy, next-gen firewalls to scan mobile traffic entering your network and block malware before it infects corporate systems and data. Next-gen firewalls can also scan mobile traffic entering your network and block malware before it infects corporate systems and data and block access to and from disreputable web applications and sites, adding another layer of protection.

For more information on the security and access solutions you need to enable mobile worker productivity while protecting from threats, read our eBook: SonicWall Secure Mobile Access.

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Go mobile to Increase Employee Productivity

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What if you could increase employee productivity and employee satisfaction? Compelling evidence shows that employers that embrace the use of mobile devices for work purposes, whether personal or corporate issued, can do just that. Too risky? A new generation of mobile security and management tools can enable this without compromising data security.

According to a survey of 251 businesses and IT professionals conducted in 2014 by Harvard Business Review, “organizations that support and encourage use of mobile devices by their employees are experiencing increased productivity and user satisfaction. The good news is that the mobile revolution isn’t coming, it’s here. A majority of respondents believe mobile devices have already transformed their organizations, and predict their transformational impact will be even greater in two years. As an example, 65 percent of respondents say mobile devices have improved enterprise efficiency, while another 51 percent say they’ve improved customer service. Meanwhile, 47 percent say they’ve enhanced employee satisfaction and retention. ”

Could your business benefit from increased efficiency? Increased employee satisfaction? Most businesses could.

In order to achieve these benefits, you’ll likely need to refresh your data access and security infrastructure to support the mobile worker. Most organizations are optimized for the legacy remote access paradigm, that is, IT managed windows laptops. To facilitate mobile worker productivity, you’ll need to modernize your access and security infrastructure to enable mobile worker productivity and protect from mobile threats. Here’s a checklist of considerations:

  1. Data protection, end-to-end: Data protection is a top concern and many organizations are considering or have deployed technologies such as Hosted Virtual Desktop, Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) or other data encryption solutions to secure business data on mobile and remote devices. This a great start, but company data and networks are still at risk if only on-device data protection is addressed. Security is an end-to-end mobile workflow challenge.

  2. Access to company data from many device types: Your remote access infrastructure was likely implemented for the use case of remote workers accessing corporate resources from windows laptops. Of course, this has changed with the explosion of mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets etc”¦.and will continue to evolve with wearables and the internet of things. To get ahead of the curve, IT organizations need to invest in access infrastructure and gateways that can support not only legacy windows laptop technologies, but also today’s mobile devices and are ready to support the connected devices of the future. For example, enabling secure access from the standard HTML 5 browsers that most modern connected devices support.

    Also, your access infrastructure was likely implemented to support a one session per user model. With the explosion of mobile and connected devices comes an explosion of concurrent sessions. To get ahead of the explosion and provide the support businesses will need to be successful, you need access infrastructure and gateways that are scalable to keep ahead of the explosion and keep employees productive.

    And lastly, whereas workers were delighted with the productivity gains experienced when business email and calendar could be accessed from smartphones, today’s workers want access to all the company resources they need to be productive, including ERP etc”¦.from their mobile devices. To get ahead of the curve, your access infrastructure needs to support secure access to a broad range of resources, including intranet web apps, client server apps, hosted desktops etc”¦ from the devices workers want to use.

  3. Business + Personal = Increased risk: The business and personal mixed -usage model that many workers prefer, often results in co-mingling of personal and business data and apps on mobile devices. The typical scenario is a mobile user accessing email, calendar, the internet, social media and other apps for personal use, and also accessing business mail, calendar, intranet file share and intranet business apps for business use. The challenge for IT here is, that this comingling of apps and data increases the risk of business data loss and the risk of malware threats. We also find that IT organizations have challenges associated with mobile workers who are concerned about app and data privacy. Increasingly, personal data is legally protected, so businesses need to track end-user acceptance of BYOD policy terms to reduce business risk and demonstrate legal compliance. And we’re seeing these challenges across the board, impacting organizations of all sizes, all types. No organization is immune, though the greatest risk is with regulated industries.

  4. Cyber threats go mobile: Historically, IT protected corporate networks and compute environments by only allowing trusted devices and users to connect to the network. IT could help limit the potential of devices introducing malware onto the network by controlling and managing laptop configurations and software images. In the new mobile era, IT no longer controls or manages these devices. Workers are independently choosing their smart-phones and tablets as well as the apps and services they use to address business and personal needs, and with the mobile explosion comes an increase in cyber threats targeting mobile platforms.

    To protect from malware infection, the best defense is a good offense.

    With mobile users and BYOD, you may not control the device or the software, but you can deploy access control and security technologies in your IT infrastructure that interrogate the device, OS, mobile apps and validate their integrity before granting access to your network. You can deploy next-gen firewalls to scan mobile traffic entering your network and block malware before it infects corporate systems and data. And you can monitor and block access to and from disreputable web applications and sites.

    If your business could benefit from increased employee productivity and satisfaction, now’s the time to embrace going mobile. For more information on access and security solutions you need to enable mobile worker productivity while protecting from threats, read our eBook, SonicWall Secure Mobile Access for BYOD.

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IT Security: Is Your Strategy Adopted by Employees

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Patrick Sweeney, executive director of product management, SonicWall Security Products once said “At any given moment, every organization in the world is a few packets away from an imminent infrastructure disaster!” There can be many reasons for this to happen: out of date security technologies, non- adapted security policies and human errors. Despite our best efforts, human beings are, and will always be, imperfect. And so are the systems that humans design and maintain, from governments to corporations to schools to hospitals. Of course, the same is true of IT security systems, which employ powerful technology, but in the end are only as strong as how employees adopt and use them.

The recent security breaches that have allowed hackers to steal millions of credit card numbers and consumer names and addresses from the largest retailers in the U.S. turns out to not be particularly sophisticated. In the end, we’ve learned that many of these companies’ defenses were fully prepared with malware detection tools and that the technology did its job. If the tactics weren’t that sophisticated and the defensive technology in place worked as intended, then how can we account for what happened?

It’s come to light that a series of human errors are often in play starting with successful targeted phishing attacks on employees (more and more targeting privileged account users) that go undetected for weeks and give cybercriminals ample time to collect sensitive data and access business applications. It is widely accepted today that human errors like this cause the lion’s share of information security breaches around the world. In fact, one survey found that 70 percent of IT security breaches can be attributed to human elements.

Companies can have plenty of security controls with abundant security instrumentation and keep their software up to date. Yet one click from an employee””uninformed about security policies or simply trying to get the job done in the most expedient way possible””can inadvertently give access to threat actors with malicious intent, circumventing security technologies in place.

That is why forward-thinking companies are investing in more than just technology to maximize their IT defenses. They are working to educate, train, and cultivate a culture of security among the employees of their organizations.

In today’s connected world, data is the lifeblood of business. And that data includes billions of pieces of personally identifiable contact information, account numbers, healthcare patient records, trade secrets and a wide range of other sensitive material. The value of data increasingly relies on the ability for the right people””and only the right people””to access it wherever and whenever it’s needed.

To drive innovation and agility, organizations are adopting mobile, social, and cloud computing technologies at an accelerating rate. And these technologies are delivering data and applications outside the network boundaries and therefore outside many traditional IT security solutions. Securing information everywhere it resides and everywhere it needs to go is a top priority. But even as they keep pace with increasingly sophisticated cyber crime techniques, IT security technologies are only as effective as the people who use them (or don’t).

Let’s take a look at a small sample of human errors committed thousands, if not millions, of times every day:

  • Clicking on a malicious link in a seemingly innocent email
  • Using a simple password or using the same password for both work applications and personal accounts
  • Leaving or losing a smartphone or laptop in a taxi or airport
  • Uploading company data to a public cloud service

Whether slip ups are made out of carelessness, ignorance or a well-intentioned attempt to get work done faster, the results can be equally damaging. For organizations to truly secure their information, they need employees, partners and others with access to their data to understand, adopt and comply with well-articulated security policies and protocols.

And those policies and the technology that enforces them must be easy to use. They cannot be barriers to productivity. Creating this “culture of security” requires a comprehensive, end-to-end strategy, adapted to the unique business requirements of each organization and supported by top management.

SonicWall develops end-to-end IT security solutions that are easy to use, designed to be embraced and adopted by employees and business partners without hampering productivity. More adoption means more compliance, and better security. And better security is better business!

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Ensure that your IT security strategy is adopted by your employees read the tech brief “The AAA approach to network security”.

Adapting Your Mobile IT Security Strategy to Enable Mobile Workers

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Providing employees with mobile access to corporate resources and applications can deliver a wealth of benefits, including improved productivity, satisfaction and innovation. However, it also introduces security and compliance challenges, from data loss to network breaches and malware attacks.

The way people work has fundamentally changed and mobile devices are at the forefront of this shift. An IDC study predicted that by now, more than one third of the world’s total workforce would consist of mobile workers. Meanwhile, Gartner Predicts by 2017, Half of Employers will Require Employees to Supply Their Own Device for Work Purposes. The phenomenal growth of mobile computing stems from its convenience and benefits. Mobile users have become accustomed to having the internet and their email and calendaring applications at their fingertips in their personal lives, and they are now expecting a similar experience when accessing business-critical applications, along with the ability to choose their corporate device or use their own. Organizations are finding that providing these capabilities increases employee productivity and spurs innovation.

Of course, there are challenges and risks to providing mobile access. The top five mobile threats are data loss from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices, information-stealing mobile malware, data loss and data leakage through poorly written third-party applications, vulnerabilities within devices, OS, design and third-party applications, and insecure Wi-Fi network or rogue access points. Mobile devices are often lost or stolen, which makes the data on them, as well as the corporate network, vulnerable to unauthorized access. In addition, a mobile device can become a conduit for malware from rogue apps, and unless data is encrypted in flight, it’s susceptible to interception, especially when users are on public Wi-Fi networks.

Compliance and legal aspects are another obstacle. In particular, it isn’t always clear who owns the data on mobile devices; some organizations insist that company data on employee owned phones and tablets belongs to the company and that it should be backed up and archived for legal and compliance purposes. In addition, unless a device has been locked down, there’s also a chance that an employee will move corporate data into the cloud or that it will be lifted directly from the device by an advertising network or a cybercriminal. Accordingly, an interesting dynamic is emerging between the teams responsible for IT and those tasked with security and compliance. IT leadership has strong motivation to implement a mobile access policy to gain productivity and user satisfaction benefits, while the individuals responsible for information security and compliance or IT support may try to stall or block the adoption of a mobile computing model.

Clearly, implementing a mobile program promises significant benefits but also introduces important risks. Therefore, in order for a strategy to emerge, all stakeholders must agree on the organization’s mobile computing needs, what can be supported in the short and medium term, and the ultimate vision.

To help your organization establish to what extent to embrace mobility, consider the secure mobility risk and compliance model (see figure below), which shows the risk, level of compliance and level of access associated with different mobile strategies.

As the model shows, company-issued devices offer the lowest security risk and the highest level of compliance. However, issuing devices to each user can be costly, and limiting mobile users to only a single device (that is not of their choosing) can significantly reduce the potential productivity benefits of the mobile strategy. At the other end of the spectrum, embracing full “bring your own device” (BYOD) may delight the mobile user community, but it entails some significant IT support, security and compliance challenges. Many organizations choose a mobile strategy between these two extremes, such as “company-owned, personally enabled” (COPE) or “choose your own device” (CYOD).

Whatever mobile strategy you choose, it is important to add context to access requests made by an authenticated user. For example, users who are accessing from a company-issued device should expect virtually the same experience as they would have in the office. However, users accessing company data and applications from a personal tablet or smartphone might be denied access to business-critical systems that contain sensitive data (such as HR, order processing or CRM) and allowed access to only email and calendar data.

Ensure that your IT security strategy is adapted to your mobility requirements read the tech brief “The AAA approach to network security”.

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Introducing Secure Mobile Access 6200/7200 SMA 11.2

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IT organizations are struggling to keep up with mobile worker demand for access to more resources from more device types without compromising security. Often, mobile workers are accessing company resources from multiple devices concurrently, increasing traffic volumes, session counts and putting significant strains on legacy access infrastructure.

To help meet mobile enterprise needs, SonicWall is introducing three new secure access gateway appliances that increase scalability up to 8x over the previous generation. We’re also adding new features to the SMA OS that allow access from more devices, to more resources, more securely. In line with the expanded functionality of our gateway solution, the brand name for the appliances is changing from E-class Secure Remote Access to Secure Mobile Access. New appliances and features include:

  • SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 6200 Appliance with support for up to 2000 concurrent sessions
  • SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 7200 Appliance with support for up to 10,000 concurrent sessions
  • SonicWall Secure Mobile Access virtual appliance for HyperV with support for up to 5000 concurrent sessions
  • SonicWall Secure Mobile Access OS release 11.2 with HTML 5 browser access to Citrix Xendesktop and Xenapps (ICA support) via the SMA Workplace portal. This enables secure, clientless access for most smartphones, tablets and laptops while reducing reliance on troublesome Java and ActiveX components. (In addition to existing support for access to RDP published apps and desktops)

The portfolio also includes the flagship E-Class SRA EX9000 appliance that supports up to 20,000 concurrent sessions, and the Secure Mobile Access virtual appliance for VMware that supports up to 5000 concurrent sessions.

The new SMA appliances will be available to ship May 5, 2015. E-class SRA customers with current support contracts can now upgrade to SMA OS 11.2 at mysonicwall.com. For more information, please refer to the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access website.