Securely embracing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)[1]  world

The market for smartphones and tablets is exploding at an incredible rate that is forecast to hit 1.3billion devices by 2015 (IDC 1/2012).[2]  Consumers are driving the adoption of these new devices into the enterprise. Just a few years ago, most enterprises were standardized on BlackBerry for corporate communications and applications. Employees at all levels began by asking -- and then demanding -- that their IT departments support[3]  iPhone and Android devices, whose low cost, ease of use, and usefulness for personal tasks and entertainment make them so appealing.

Enterprises are challenged by the conflicting needs of protecting and managing corporate information while making it readily accessible to their internal and external users. To meet this challenge, they need to provide secure containerization[4]  and control of corporate information in such a way that it can co-exist with an individual’s personal data and apps without mixing or ‘leaking’.

Many contemporary mobile solutions focus on trying to manage the device. That approach works  for business-only corporate-owned devices, but now users bristle if IT forces them use a PIN to unlock their phone whenever they want to check Twitter or play a game.

A better fit for BYOD is to move the boundary of control from the device down to the application layer. There, one can have full control over communications, encryption and security policies.  By deploying a container application that is centrally managed by IT, organizations can confidently deploy access to sensitive systems and information with the assurance that they remain in control of policies and that any data in the container is protected by high levels of encryption.

With a container solution that features its own private communications link, organizations can even deploy solutions to partners and other users with full control over their ‘secure island’ of corporate data.  By keeping devices off the network and minimizing or eliminating the need to change network and firewall configuration, risks are further reduced.

With Rover’s platform,  you can quickly provision secure access to existing intranet resources and then build out mobile optimized solutions, all within the secure confines of a container app that installs easily on unmanaged devices. Rover has the tools and solutions business needs to embrace BYOD today.