Today, nearly every office worker carries a mobile phone into work. Much of the time, the devices are more advanced smartphones, such as Android-based phones, Blackberry devices, or Apple's iPhone. The employees almost never consider the security implications of bringing connected devices behind a company's firewall.
Yet the trend has not escaped the notice of chief security officers and information-technology administrators. Smartphones are becoming prolific within enterprises, but the security teams don't really have a handle on how to secure the devices, says John Hering, CEO of Lookout, a mobile security firm.
"They have spent a vast amount of resources in terms of dollars and time to defend their corporate networks and the traditional network security perimeter, but the mobile device … has trusted access to the very critical data at the soft and chewy center of the company," Hering says. "It's almost a Trojan horse into the enterprise itself.
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