Isolating corporate data from personal files on mobile devices: why it matters

Kaspersky Lab recently announced that it has patented a new technology for protecting corporate data on employee mobile devices.

The technology secures corporate data from unauthorized access and leaks by isolating it from a user’s personal data. The patent was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Mobility and Bring Your Own Device has turned from a competition advantage into a norm, from a fashionable trend into a developed, albeit still somewhat immature, business practice. The security aspect, however, still has a long road of improvement ahead.

The primary problem with employee mobile devices is their “elusiveness”. While the large portion of people use them to store work-related data (according to a recent study, almost 50%), they still consider smartphones to be their own property, and the files stored in the gadgets’ memory their own personal concern. Well, until the smartphone is lost or stolen or damaged beyond repair. Then all of sudden it becomes a problem for the company’s IT staff, even though they might have no idea the important data was there.

According to the study, 36% of respondents said they kept work files on their mobile devices; 18% kept passwords to work email accounts; 11% kept passwords to an enterprise’s intranet or virtual private network.

And only 10% are seriously concerned about the security of work-related information in the event of cybercriminals gaining access to their device. This means that until employees’ awareness is raised, the very presence of any sensitive business data on their personal devices is trouble in the making.

So first and foremost, it is necessary to keep personal and working data isolated from each other. That’s the purpose of Kaspersky Lab’s newly patented technology, which thus provides an extra level of security, and that’s why it matters.

The technology places third-party applications interacting with corporate data into an isolated environment (containers), and protects that data from unauthorized access from the outside, according to predefined security policies.

The technology is implemented in the corporate solution Kaspersky Security for Mobile, which provides control over mobile applications and devices, protects users from malware and other cyber threats, and offers remote device management if they are lost or stolen. Kaspersky Security for Mobile is part of Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, and is managed from a single console along with Kaspersky Lab’s other security solutions.