Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of Sophos Enduser Group

NAIROBI, KENYA: Sophos, a network and endpoint security firm on Wednesday announced the availability of mobile Control 6.0, which now includes secure email, a container solution that isolates and secures business data from personal information on devices.

The mobile control 6.0 also enhances data protection capabilities and allows IT managers to oversee devices used throughout their organization through a simple interface and intuitive workflows. 

Within the mobile control 6.0 is a secure email, a personal information management (PIM) container solution for email, calendar and contacts. Personal and corporate data can be separated, allowing organisations to manage business data security while enhancing user privacy. IT administrators can remotely provision email to employee mobile devices across popular platforms, including iOS, and multiple Android versions.  

Also new to version 6.0 is secure workplace which includes corporate browser to facilitate safe access to frequently used business productivity sites and applications. The secure workspace enables employees to seamlessly access and collaborate on the documents they need, when they need them, in a secure manner. Users also can control levels of access and publishing rights for various cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Egnyte. For additional protection, users now can securely move documents and data between mobile devices, cloud storage and corporate endpoints as Sophos SafeGuard file encryption is built in. 

With the continued growth in mobile malware, the ability to detect and quarantine infected devices is a growing priority for enterprise mobility management (EMM). In fact, more than 95 percent of attacks today involve harvesting credentials from customer devices and using those stolen credentials to log in to web applications, according to Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report.  

Device security is especially difficult to manage in mid-size enterprises that have widely distributed workforces, yet are resource-stretched. A September 2015 CompTIA study, Managing the Multi-Generational Workforce, showed that nearly half (46 percent) of small and mid-sized businesses have now fully adopted BYOD as a standard practice, as opposed to only 28 percent of large enterprises. 

“It’s too easy for employees to unknowingly download dangerous apps that expose valuable corporate data, or worse, provide an open path to business networks,” said Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of Sophos Enduser Group. “Providing management, anti-malware and data protection for mobile devices is just as important as it is for laptops or any other corporate asset – the devices are small but they can be hacked and cracked just like any PC. Balancing the levels of productivity and access demanded by users today with the growing need for tighter data security requires the ability to manage and protect. Having an enterprise mobility management solution with integrated security is becoming a critical need to organizations of any size.”