Bangalore: Blue Coat Systems, a market and technology supplier in web security and WAN optimization solutions today introduced mobile applications controls in India, to prevent security breaches by unsanctioned mobile applications on the corporate network.
Its managing director for India sales, Ambarish Deshpande said the move was to help Indian enterprises manage the proliferation of consumer technology, which has led to more employees bringing their own devices to work.
He added that the growth of Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) initiatives in India has created a situation where IT security managers are facing a deluge of untrusted, unmanaged devices and applications on the corporate network.
“For the first time, Blue Coat through its mobile application controls give Indian administrators the ability to not only determine which applications are allowed on the network, but also to what extent mobile device users are able to interact with those applications,” Deshpande said in a press statement today.
A recent survey conducted by Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights reveal that urban India has 27 million smart phone users. That represents approximately nine percent of the 900 million general mobile users in the sub continent.
Forrester Research has stated recently that 57 percent of employees chose and purchased their own smartphone without any direction or guidance from their company. While, Flurry – a mobile application measurement company has revealed that each smart phone has on average, 65 mobile applications installed. With 350 million employees expected to use smartphones at work by 2016 globally, the number of mobile applications using the corporate network will continue to skyrocket.
The increase in mobile devices on the corporate network creates two distinct risks that lead to undesired or unpredictable network impacts. First, it contributes to the growing problem of unsanctioned applications on the corporate network. Second, corporate policies cannot be consistently enforced across all devices.
Like web-based applications, the use of mobile applications is dramatically eroding IT control of the network. Unlike browser-based web applications, however, mobile applications and their corresponding operations are typically self-contained and fall outside the control of traditional web security solutions.
To prevent unauthorized or undesired use of the corporate network, Blue Coat mobile application controls uniquely extend to mobile applications the same granular operational controls the company provides for web-based applications. With these operational controls, businesses can set policies around specific functions within both web-based and mobile applications. This enables businesses to consistently enforce policy across all devices and allows them to regain control over the applications on their network.
For example, a business that wants to mitigate unintentional leaks of confidential or secure location information could set a policy for Twitter that prevents employees from sending tweets but allows full reading or monitoring access. Blue Coat mobile application controls extend that web-based application policy to the Twitter mobile application, allowing read-only access across all devices on the network.
The new mobile application controls are integrated into the Blue Coat ProxySG appliances and the Blue Coat Cloud Service. Blue Coat adds new applications and operations to its mobile application controls on a monthly basis to continually enhance the value delivered to customers and ensure they have the most relevant controls to manage the applications on their network. The mobile application controls are automatically updated through the Blue Coat WebPulse collaborative defense and immediately available to customers with current support contracts.
