The Mobile Workforce

If your concerns about mobility are still centered on rogue access points and weak wireless encryption, you’re not keeping up. With the release of the iPhone, the long-hyped computer-like smart phone phenomena finally arrived. Each iPhone within the enterprise represents an uncontrolled node that could introduce viruses, leach out intellectual property secrets and generally undermine your security policies.

At the same time, mobility isn’t just about wireless. USB storage devices are cheap and robust. At a trade show this past spring, I was given a 2 GB drive as a party favor. When 2 GB USB devices are given away like key chains or beer cozies, you’d better wake up and pay attention to them. Fortunately, there is security software out there from the likes of SanDisk, DeviceLock, and SkyRecon Systems that allows you to create and enforce policies for peripherals. The big security vendors, such as Symantec, are also starting to pay attention to this problem, so you should have plenty of options for protection in 2008.