Over the last few weeks we have been hearing about how Samsung has BlackBerry’s enterprise business in its sights with their new Samsung Safe offering. In short Samsung is working on their own MDM for Android instead of actually improving the security of Android devices. I found this quite entertaining when a few readers mentioned it and was working on an article about it. Rob Enterle from CIO.com beat me to the punch with his article “Why Samsung Won’t Beat Blackberry in the Mobile Enterprise” It really does a great job explaining how Samsung is trying to bolt on security and echos much of what I have been saying.
Here is a quick excerpt that summarizes:
…Samsung went with mobile device management (MDM)—which, in the case of a vulnerable platform, only makes IT more responsible for adverse results but doesn’t address the core security problems. The company implemented encryption, which can protect the files unless a user’s identity is stolen, which unfortunately is the purpose of much Android malware. Samsung also installed a VPN, which actually makes a compromised device more dangerous, because VPNs tunnel through the perimeter security of a business, potentially granting even greater access to the attacker. Finally, the company made email connectivity improvements, which also giving an attacker greater access via a compromised phone.
Check out the full article at CIO.com. Personally I loved his conclusion about how companies that are new to servicing IT try to take an existing product and patch it to look “IT-like” until it realizes that this approach sucks.
Amir Saad ( View Profile) - Posts: