While PCs will likely remain with us for a long time, the PC era has come to a close. Bob Gourley discussed this transition and the rise of mobile in an interview with IDG’s Bill Laberis at the HP Protect 2011 conference on Monday, September 12, 2011.
Though there are currently 1.2 billion PCs in the world, there are 4 billion active cell phone accounts, a growing proportion of which are smartphones. This, along with the explosive rise of tablets, has brought about the mobile era, impacting enterprise architecture, operations, and security. With data being pushed out to mobile devices, including possibly devices not issued by the company, protecting that data outside of the enterprise becomes a challenge. To do so, you must use multiple layers of protection, encrypt the data en route to the device, manage the device’s configuration, and ensure that the device has no malicious code. Currently, there is a need for solutions that can deliver those capabilities in an end-to-end manner.
Compliance with regulations such as HIPAA for medicine pose additional challenges when data moves outside the enterprise and on to a mobile device. While you can encrypt the data from the enterprise to the device, configure devices to be in compliance with the policy, and implement software to fight malicious code on some of the devices out there, some of the solutions we need do not yet exist. As a result, we’re in a very high risk environment with regards to mobile devices and CIOs and CISOs need to issue their policies accordingly.
The consumerization of IT, which brings millions of new devices into the business environment, further complicated this problem, especially given tightening IT budgets in government and industry. To secure this data without swelling strained budgets, Bob suggests coupling securityand functionality. Enterprises have no choice but to send their information out to their people in order to accomplish their mission, but they also need to keep it safe. Security and functionality can not be an either/or trade off, so IT budgets must be executed smartly for both crucial needs to be met.
Related Articles:
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- Myths and Realities of Cloud Cybersecurity (ctovision.com)
- Survey says: Security risks never higher, or more costly (ctovision.com)
- Evolving Approaches to Cyber Threats (ctovision.com)
- Yesterday’s Security Doesn’t Work for Today’s Threats (ctovision.com)
- Big Data and the Enterprise CIO (ctolabs.com)
Well said Bob!
We need to start now and prepare for writing for mobile users.
We are already behind the curve at this point but nuff said.
Don’t delay any longer, get started!