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Apple’s attitude towards security has Sophos’ director of technology strategy, James Lyne wondering if in the next 12-18 months, “Android becomes more secure and Apple starts to get embarrassed.”
The perception right now is that Android has screwed up implementation of their application store and security on their operating system, while Apple always has very secure machines. Apple’s ‘securer than thou’ attitude is even reflected in the wording on their website. Lyne observed however that recently they have changed description of their products from being absolutely impervious to being ‘’less likely (to be infected)”.
But whatever the case, they still haven’t opened up enough to allow for third-party security solutions for their iOS range of products. “Once people have an idea about security, they hold onto it long past after it is not true,” said Lyne.
Apple has recently purchased AuthenTec, a developer of mobile security solution, for US$356 million, according to a filing with the SEC. The deal is significant in that AuthenTec had recently signed a deal to supply its VPN software to Apple’s smartphone rival, Samsung. AuthenTec also develops biometric sensors for PCs and mobile devices. It remains to be seen what exactly Apple will do with AuthenTec.
As if the impending doom from lack of a truly secure mobile OS isn’t enough, enterprises also have to contend with popular IT consumerisation and BYOD trends which open up more opportunities for not just hacker mayhem, but also ‘espionage’ and unintentional data leakage.
Once the upper-level management of an organisation succumbed to shiny new iPad or Android devices, IT departments have had to follow suit and tended to sandbox those devices from the rest of the corporate network. “But they soon realised that the end user experience is horrible.”
According to Lyne, what IT departments do now is manage baseline security of devices – patches, encryption, certificates and restrictions of certain features and applications like location and so on. Emailing, corporate and personal might even be allowed and the rest is left to policies to take care of.
