Mobile security

As the number of mobile devices grow in the enterprise environment, the security stakes grow exponentially along with it. It's simple math. The more devices you have, the more vulnerabilities your business will eventually have. In a recent report by US security company, Mandiant, enterprises in Asia were shown to have the worst cyber security in the world—making them more likely to be targeted by cyber criminals looking for soft targets. 80% more to be exact.

Security breaches have extremely far-reaching consequences. Tangible financial losses could be minimal, but intangible financial losses that result from loss of data, reputation and trust could be devastating for your business. And research has shown that Asian companies are not doing enough to protect themselves from ever evolving cyber-threats.

To ensure your business is free (as much as possible) from cyber-threats, you’ll need to develop a robust security strategy, or engage a third-party managed mobility service provider (like StarHub's Enterprise Managed Mobility service which stops threats at the network level). Nevertheless, you'll need to understand the major threats you’re facing before taking the next step. As such, we’ve compiled a list of top priority security vulnerabilities you need to take action against, in order to protect your business from breaches.

As the number of mobile devices grow in the enterprise environment, the security stakes grow exponentially along with it. It's simple math. The more devices you have, the more vulnerabilities your business will eventually have. In a recent report by US security company, Mandiant, enterprises in Asia were shown to have the worst cyber security in the world—making them more likely to be targeted by cyber criminals looking for soft targets. 80% more to be exact.

Security breaches have extremely far-reaching consequences. Tangible financial losses could be minimal, but intangible financial losses that result from loss of data, reputation and trust could be devastating for your business. And research has shown that Asian companies are not doing enough to protect themselves from ever evolving cyber-threats.

To ensure your business is free (as much as possible) from cyber-threats, you’ll need to develop a robust security strategy, or engage a third-party managed mobility service provider (like StarHub's Enterprise Managed Mobility service which stops threats at the network level). Nevertheless, you'll need to understand the major threats you’re facing before taking the next step. As such, we’ve compiled a list of top priority security vulnerabilities you need to take action against, in order to protect your business from breaches.

The malware of today are much more sophisticated than before, and have the potential to cause much more destruction. A compromised phone can be used to penetrate unsecured networks at specific locations, or cause financial loss (premium SMS or trojan apps, etc.) for your organisation.

According to a recent Check Point report, a newly discovered Android security flaw puts almost a billion phones (that use Qualcomm chips) at risk of being compromised. This includes a large number of enterprise products that your organisation uses. And if you think Apple's iPhones are free from such worries, you’d being wrong. Even Apple’s famed walled garden has some well-documented security flaws that allows critical data to be siphoned from your employees' phone.

Due to the exorbitant costs of mobile data in Singapore, your employees may access publicly available unsecured networks to save on data usage. Unfortunately, unsecured networks increase the risk of data loss exponentially. Besides the constant exchange of data between your device and the unsecured network, there is also a high risk of malware infection and other ways of compromising your employees' mobile devices. And as public hotspots become more available, users may become less careful when connecting to them, and could very well unwittingly connect to a fake hotspot designed specifically to steal data from unsecured phones.

Development of mobile devices is moving at a lightning pace. Every year, Google and Apple release massive operating system (OS) updates meant to make the devices better and safer. Unfortunately, this development pace also exposes several new problems with your employees devices. New features being introduced also mean they’re not yet extensively tested for security vulnerabilities. Hackers might be able to exploit them in ways that the manufacturers did not foresee.

Another major problem with this cycle, is that patches and fixes to the operating systems may not even reach your employees' devices, as testing and dissemination is dependant of carriers. Also, older devices might not even receive updates for newly discovered vulnerabilities, as manufacturers tend to stop supporting them after 12-18 months after they're launched.

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