Mobile devices to increase to two billion by 2016, in India

BANGALORE, INDIA: BYOD, today has turned into a need which lets to the need of enterprise mobility. The BYOD platform, though is a need of the hour, what remains in the grey area is its security.

Pervez Goiporia, vice president, development, Oracle India, explains on the growth of enterprise mobility and how it can be secured.

CIOL: What are the prospects of enterprise mobility in India?

Pervez Goiporia: There has been an unprecedented growth in mobile devices over the last year and today smart phones outsells PC's and mobile computers are spreading faster than any other consumer technology in history. According to industry reports the number of mobile devices in India will increase to almost two billion by 2016 - that's about 2 devices per individual for India. About 50 percent of organisations in India are expected to adopt a BYOD strategy by 2017.The pervasiveness of mobile devices means Enterprises today has to have a multi-channel environment that enables end user to access information on a desktop, a tablet or a smart phone - anytime, anywhere. This has led to a surge in the enterprise mobility market. What we are seeing is that Mobility is taking the same trajectory as that taken by the Web when it came into being. Today nobody questions the need for a web presence. Similarly time has come when it is imperative to have a mobile presence for all your applications and services.

We believe the next frontier for enterprise computing will see the convergence of the Internet of Things with mobile computing to create the Connected Enterprise. Being able to leverage mobile technology and make it meaningful by finding significant links to multiple, varied sources of data (for example linking biometric values with environmental factors, or calendar data with home control and monitoring) is what will lead to promising developments across industry segments.

CIOL: What are the security challenges faced by organisations while adopting mobility?

PG: The proliferation of personal devices has caught many organizations un-prepared for new security threats and regulatory challenges. Mobile devices have redefined perimeter security and the network is no longer the main point of control. The new security perimeter now includes users, devices and data. Almost 90% of employees are using smartphone devices for work, and nearly half of them are doing so without the permission of their employer. The variety of platforms and operating system versions of personal devices further complicates the scenario for IT security teams to adapt a consistent policy and enforcement across devices.

Although applications are quickly becoming the greatest enabler for businesses to empower their employees with real time data, these can become a conduit for privileged access abuse, misuse, and data theft. Secondary applications and malicious code often steal credentials or leverages unauthorized connections. Today, 76% of all enterprise data breaches are the result of weak or stolen credentials. If a cybercriminal gains access to a privileged user's mobile device, they can potentially find privileged credentials to further penetrate the organization. Enterprises need to deploy a strong mobile security solution to address these vulnerabilities to support BYOD initiatives.

CIOL: How can organizations secure the BYOD platform?

PG: The key to managing users, devices and data is through identity. Therefore, it is critical to leverage an identity management infrastructure as the basis of security in a mobility platform. For many organizations, provisioning a mobile device is no longer a multi-step process but an integral part of a new-hire automated workflow that sets up the accounts associated with a new user. As part of new device ordering, the workflow must tie the device order to the new user's "identity." A new policy can be provisioned, along with all associated applications, before the user is granted access to the device.

 

Organizations need to strike the right balance between securing enterprise application data and maintaining employee privacy. Many solutions today follow a device-centric approach (Mobile Device Management) that is intrusive. The key to an effective next generation mobile security policy is being able to separate the business application data from the personal application data to allow employees the freedom of using personal devices at work, without compromising corporate security.

Oracle's Mobile Security Suite helps achieve this using a technique called containerization. It creates a secure workspace in which corporate applications, email, and data are stored. Only authenticated users can access the secure workspace to run the applications and access data, and only applications provisioned or approved by corporate IT can be installed and executed from within this secure workspace. If the device is lost or stolen, corporate IT can remotely wipe the secure workspace.

CIOL: How is Oracle Mobile security solution different?

PG: By 2020, 80 percent of access to the enterprise will be via mobile devices, up from 5 percent today. This disruptive trend will require organizations to quickly rethink mobile security inside out. The fragmented MDM (mobile device management) solutions offered today are short lived and will not scale to address this trend. Oracle's identity based approach to mobile security is differentiated because it allows organizations to scale by securing mobile applications and data independent of the device. Our Identity Management Suite offers a robust platform for mobile application and data security. It provides the control organizations need to scale and it enhances the user experience so corporations can unlock the potential of personal devices.

CIOL: Could you share a list of customers who have deployed Oracle mobile security?

PG: In India, we are seeing a growing interest for our solutions among companies in the financial service sector - private and public sector banks, insurance companies, Telcos, IT/ITes or professional service organizations, manufacturing, utility companies among others. While we do not have an Indian customer that can be publicly referenced, I would like to highlight how the U.S based grocery retail store SUPERVALU leveraged our mobile security solution to secure their mobile applications.

SUPERVALU has over 4,700 company and franchised owned locations servicing 130,000 employees. As the company rolled out a new mobile and social strategy to help its store managers save time and increase productivity, it needed an identity management solution that could provide secure access to company information via more than 2,200 Apple iPads that were being distributed across the company. It selected Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 2 to deliver the powerful security it required, while being easy to use and maintain. Through the access management capabilities of Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 2, SUPERVALU's store directors are now able to access back office applications using iPads to manage their respective SUPERVALU retail locations from anywhere on the store floor, resulting in increased productivity and the ability to spend more face-to-face time with their customers.