The Mobile Protection Gap

You have protection on desktop and laptop, but what about smartphones?

Imagine this typical scenario: You’re in charge of IT. You’re responsible for ensuring the company’s sensitive information is safe from cyber criminals. You’ve got firewalls and anti-virus protection on all office desktops as well as on all employees’ laptops. You’re confident that even the most determined of hackers won’t be able to penetrate the security systems you’ve implemented.

It is then, when you’re checking your work emails on the subway ride in, that it dawns on you…What about company smartphones?

The problem

You walk into the office. You pass sales manager Sam on a phone call. He’s ordering a lunch platter for today’s monthly meeting. You continue down the corridor. You see Tara in marketing. She’s showing her assistant a funny celebrity tweet on her iPhone. In fact, everywhere you look, colleagues are on their smartphones. Now that you think about it, you remember that all of your maintenance crews use their tablets to access customer records.

You’re sitting in the boardroom when your colleague Luke’s mobile beeps beside you. You direct your eyes to the source. “It’s a Match! You and Amy have liked each other!” Really? He has Tinder installed on his work phone?

Waiting for the meeting to get underway, you realise several things. Firstly, none of the company’s work phones are protected from a cyber attack. Secondly, employees can easily be tricked into following a link to a risky or compromising website. Finally, data overages become a common problem when company devices leave the office Wi-Fi. 

After the meeting you go straight into research mode. You read examples of phishing attacks via WhatsApp, sms and social media. Further research reveals reports of malware hidden in mobile apps. You think of your colleagues who use their company phone for remote working and when travelling overseas. What you need is a solution that can detect and block cyber threats in real-time wherever in the world an employee might be. 

The solution

You immediately disregard proxy and APN based solutions. Their designs are complex and you want something that’s simple to deploy. Plus, you need a solution that doesn’t invade employees’ privacy. But then, ‘Corrata – The Immune System for Mobile’ catches your eye. You’re impressed to learn that Corrata uses an on-device firewall and machine learning to catch threats. You’re intrigued. 

Corrata blocks phishing sites and malware downloads in real-time. The security system similarly prevents access to other risky applications or non-business content. 

After further exploring, you learn that Corrata blacklists high bandwidth, entertainment sites such as video streaming platforms. Not only that, Corrata whitelists business critical apps. ‘Great!’ you think. Employees will always have access to their work emails and shared folders when on the move. 

You breathe a sigh of relief. You know that all employee smartphones and tablets will now be safe from all future cyber attacks.