Companies obliged to control data
He says in the past mobile workers logged into the corporate network with passwords that gave them access to data on an all-or nothing basis.
But compliance issues now demand that companies have control over their data wherever it is on any device, internally and externally, and can provide audit trails to back this up, says Norton
“As a result organisations have to treat all employees and their devices as not being trustworthy when it comes to controlling access to data,” says Norton.
When an employee logs onto the network, a management software solution needs to be in place to check the device he is using and ensure a defined set of corporate requirements are met, and grant access based on his credentials and profile, he says.
For example, a user may be granted full access rights to the network when he is on the company premises but have limited access if connecting from home using an ADSL line, or from a hotspot or hotel.
“The user may not be allowed to print out a document or link his laptop to an external hard drive while he is accessing information,” says Norton.
Software solutions provide this type of functionality and will scan a user’s hard drive in a matter of milliseconds to authenticate the device he is working from, he says.
The system will determine the level of access users are given, depending on the device they are using, the location from which they are accessing data, and their user profile when they log in, says Norton.
When the user is accessing the network from an external environment, such as an internet café, his access privileges can be confined to working on his own data without the ability to cut and paste or save information to the hard drive of the device he is working from. In addition, the system provides a secure tunnel through which users can access corporate data over the public internet, he says.
To enable efficient mobile access to back-office applications, a company will need to ensure there are no barriers to entry once the user and device have been authenticated. It means they will need to deal with specific authentication requirements inherent in some individual applications, such as e-mail, customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning products, he says.
Norton says the Citrix Password Manager software authenticates users once.
Loading ...