Taking Care of Business On the Go, Securely
A CEO has business meetings in London and Hong Kong, and in the mean time his company is acquiring a manufacturing center in South America. He is working with bankers in New York and Brazil to close the deal. In the interim the deal documents need to be reviewed and exchanged between all parties securely across borders, time zones, and teams. Luckily for the CEO he has an iPad®, so he can access and review documents throughout the deal regardless of whether he is in a taxi, on a train, or in his hotel room between meetings to ensure that the deal runs smoothly.
Whether they are in the office or constantly on the road, mobile devices serve as time multipliers for workers and provide the added benefits of catching up on e-mail, reviewing work, or even editing important business documents in the midst of a critical business deal. However, in an attempt to be productive mobile workers often don’t share the concerns of their colleagues in the IT department about security. The security of the applications business users leverage to access information, and what happens to data when they use third party readers and editors to interact with the documents is not usually top of mind for them.
While most employees have access to systems by VPN, and can log into their corporate systems securely, the proliferation of mobile devices has created new and additional concerns in terms of security. Mobile devices, unlike PCs or laptops are more easily lost or stolen because they fit into a pocket- creating a point of access for someone who wants to steal valuable corporate data. Further vulnerabilities present themselves in the form of hackers and mobile viruses. The employees themselves introduce risk into the mobile equation as in an effort to be productive, they use devices that aren’t issued with standard company security measures and download third party apps to interact with or view data where it can then be stored on another company’s server introducing yet another set of risks.
Branded applications, like the IntraLinks Secure Mobile Application for iPhone® and iPad® provide a secure, and effective gateway between smartphones and enterprise systems. With the IntraLinks app, IntraLinks customers have mobile access to IntraLinks exchanges to help drive business forward while protecting corporate information. The offering incorporates security measures that protect information at a device, system, and enterprise level even if the device is lost. Through a combination of time-outs, pin codes, server authentication, and other capabilities IT folks can rest better at night knowing that IntraLinks data is secure for mobile users.
While mobile capabilities provide powerful links between users and the cloud to access information, security has to be at the front and center of any mobile strategy. Consumer oriented businesses were among the first to incorporate mobile applications as part of their customer service strategies, enabling customers to access information anywhere at any time. These businesses have served as test cases for reluctant business-to-business enterprises who are slowly dipping their toes in the water to use mobile apps to drive productivity by providing users with mobile access to enterprise data. Consumer brands found that relying on end-users to ensure that information is protected and secure can be problematic. This is equally the case for businesses relying on employees to ensure that information is secure given the distribution and diversity of business teams, and methods they chose to interact with data.
Mobile presents an exciting channel for the enterprise in terms of anywhere, any time accessibility to data. With the IntraLinks mobile app for iPad® and iPhone®, the power of your enterprise data and systems rests securely in the palm of your hand.
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