Apps Tech News

Most of us are familiar with BlackBerry, formerly Research in Motion; a technology giant that dominated the mobility mountain for nearly a decade, only to come crashing down as hundreds of millions of iPhones and Android devices entered the enterprise. But the rise and fall of BB is just the opening act. There is a far more fascinating drama playing out within enterprise mobility today.

Nearly every day features news of high-profile hacks; clearly the “old school” password just doesn’t cut it anymore. PayPal’s chief information security officer Michael Barrett certainly agrees.

A report from HIMSS Analytics has found that use of mobile devices, security, data storage and information exchange are the biggest IT barriers facing healthcare today. The report, a focus group of seven senior IT healthcare professionals, particularly found severe worry with the BYOD trend, with the biggest concern to the participants being IT’s lack of control concerning managing mobile devices.

Of the nearly 100 survey respondents, an overwhelming 95% said their company had “embraced” bring your own device, allowing employees to connect to the corporate network through a multitude of devices – and of that, 97% used laptops, compared to 79% with smartphones and 70% with tablets. Yet only 33% of respondents said they had a full strategy and set of rules in place about BYOD. What's the overall importance of this?

In a strange turn of events, the Pentagon has authorised BlackBerry (whose security was possibly questioned by the UK government) and Android-based manufacturer Samsung’s devices for use in the Department of Defense; but left Apple’s iPhone in question.

As the app revolution has gathered pace and smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous, the importance of testing app security has grown.

Bring your own, or leave it at home. BYOD isn't just a trend, it's an entire culture shift, argues Easynet - and it's set to stay. CTOs and CSOs clearly know they have to embrace mobile devices, if not in the next 12 months then certainly shortly afterwards, but the thought of widespread BYOD brings CTOs out in a cold sweat. The word that strikes fear into every IT professional's hear? Security.

Mobile security provider Symantec, in its latest survey, has concluded that bring your own device (BYOD) is worth the risks, despite the well-known security scare stories. The survey, which interviewed 236 attendees of the company’s Symantec Vision event, examined the risks and rewards of bring your own device, including management strategies and usage policies.