Employees use their own cloud apps to store and share work documents, fundamentally compromising enterprise security. MobileIron has shared its vision for securing business documents in the personal cloud and released the next generation of its Docs@Work secure content hub. MobileIron also announced that it has been granted three patents for content security: US Patents 8,863,297, 8,863,298, and 8,863,299 for “Secure Virtual File Management System.”
“The personal cloud has become the centre of our digital lives and like it or not, enterprise information now lives everywhere,” said Ojas Rege, Vice President Strategy, MobileIron. “Users demand best-of-breed mobile productivity solutions and, many times, those are actually consumer services. CIOs must implement an architecture that provides consistent security and policy across business and consumer services to enable their employees to use the tools and workflows that make them most productive.”
MobileIron Outlines the Three Phases to Secure the Personal Cloud
•Phase 1: Personal Cloud Access: Provide native access to popular cloud-based content repositories through a secure mobile interface. Users can now search and find their content across the cloud.
•Phase 2: File-Level Security: Establish file-level protections to ensure that enterprise information stored in the personal cloud is encrypted and cannot be accessed by unauthorised apps and users. When this phase is completed, IT will be able to create security policies that follow data wherever it lives.
•Phase 3: Best-of-Breed Ecosystem: Enable MobileIron’s application partners to access protected cloud data when authorised. When this phase is completed, users will be able to choose the best productivity solutions for them.
Docs@Work represents the first phase of personal cloud security. The new app expands Docs@Work access to popular cloud-based repositories and is available for iPad, iPhone, and Android tablets and smartphones.
“In a mobile world it’s difficult for IT to define all the tools that are used by employees to be productive on mobile devices,” said Chris Hazelton, Research Director, Enterprise Mobility, 451 Research. “Among companies where IT bans the installation of consumer apps, 44% of employees have installed or are interested in installing consumer apps outside of company policies. Mobile workers want to be productive, and will download third party apps to get work done. Given this, it’s nearly impossible for IT to stop the use of consumer apps.”