Securing Enterprise Mobility in the BYOD World

Mobile App Management Set To Take Off in Asia

Kuala Lumpur, May 8, 2013 - The explosion of mobile devices is a huge challenge for IT organizations in many enterprises today.

The emergence of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in Asia – and the mobile workstyles that it enables – brings with it significant benefits to the enterprise including a more productive and happier workforce and increased efficiency.

However, allowing employees to bring their smart phones and tablets into the workplace to access the corporate network, business applications and enterprise data also means security is a much bigger issue given the multiple access points the IT team will need to secure.

While enterprises have been known to depend on mobile device management software to secure the devices brought into the workplace, the diversity of mobile devices which do not allow granular control has raised the risk of security issues beyond acceptable levels in today’s compliance-centric world.

Enterprises, therefore, require a comprehensive approach that extends beyond device management to include mobile application, as well as content and services management. This allows IT to enable the end-user to be fully productive without compromising on security requirements.

Dino Soepono, Director of Enterprise Mobility for Citrix in Asia Pacific, shares why effective enterprise mobility management requires both devices and apps to be managed, and what makes a good Mobile Application Management software.

Let’s start with some definitions.

• Mobile Device Management
Mobile Device Management refers to a category of device centric software which contains features like remote lock or wipe, policy enforcement, device tracking, group configuration and active directory integration. The software works on the premise that the enterprise secures the corporate data by controlling access to the device as well as device capabilities.

• Mobile Application Management
Mobile Application Management refers to data and application centric software which contains features like the separation of corporate apps and data from personal apps and data, and secure access to the corporate network. The software works on the premise that controlling the app access is more secure as it spans across multiples devices compared to device access, due to the diversity of devices in the enterprise.
Securing your enterprise one app at a time

There are three key reasons why Asian enterprises need to start looking at adopting a Mobile Application Management solution today.

• Separation of corporate apps and data from personal apps and data
Segregating corporate apps and data from personal apps and data on a user device allows IT to create specific policy-based controls for apps that prevent corporate data security from being compromised.  With the segregation, IT can use mobile data leakage prevention software to lock, wipe and encrypt apps and data specific to the enterprise.

• Restrict access to the corporate LAN via Micro VPN
By allowing the mobile device access to the corporate network via a Micro VPN over the SSL VPN, IT is able to restrict access to apps it considers illegitimate. Micro VPN functionality does not require a device-wide VPN that can compromise security on untrusted mobile devices. As a result, the internal network is not exposed to viruses or malware that could infect the entire corporate system, and corporate mobile apps and personal mobile apps are able to co-exist on one device. A mobile application management solution with a micro VPN technology fills a significant gap left by traditional secure remote access technologies.

• Granular control for enterprise IT team
By giving enterprise IT granular control over all native and HTML5 mobile apps, enterprise IT is able to set strong authentication and endpoint analysis before permitting users to download and install applications on their devices.

In 2013, we will see Mobile Application Management come to the forefront as a key enabler of enterprise mobile security. It will give IT teams the ability to centrally control and configure policies based on users’ identity, device, location and connectivity type so as to restrict malicious usage of corporate content.

 In the event a device is lost or stolen, business applications and data can be disabled, locked or wiped remotely. The overall effect is a solution that increases employee satisfaction and productivity, while ensuring security and IT control.

Affirming the rising trend of enterprise mobility management in Asia is the release of Citrix first quarter 2013 financial results on April 24, 2013. For the first quarter ending March 31, 2013, Citrix’s global revenue grew 14 percent to US$673 million from US$589 million a year ago. Asia Pacific, in particular, saw its net revenue in the first quarter grow 15 percent to US$64.5 million from US$56.2 million a year ago.

“In spite of the macro factors negatively impacting IT spending, we executed well in Q1,” said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer for Citrix. “Consistently, CIOs everywhere tell me they are challenged by the transformation, consumerization and fragmentation taking place in computing. These forces are creating even more interest in mobility and cloud services.

“We remain focused on our long-term strategy to help our customers as they invest in these areas,” he further added.