Extending Aventail's Secure Remote Access Solution To Mobile Devices And Smartphones Is Ideal For Today's Corporate Mobility And Security Strategies

Published 24th May 2007

Leading Analyst Outlines Why Smartphones Need SSL VPNs for Security...

SEATTLE, WA -- May 22, 2007 -- For organizations with a mobile workforce, extending today's secure remote access solutions from laptops and remote desktops to mobile devices like smartphones is an ideal way to securely support an organization's mobility strategy, according to leading industry analyst Mark Bouchard. In a technical note titled "Getting Smart About Smartphone Security," Bouchard, the founder of Missing Link Security Services LLC, outlines today's mobile phone security considerations and the advantages of using the same SSL VPN to support both smartphones and other computing devices such as laptops and remote desktops. The technical note is available at http://www.aventail.com/Smartphone

"Smartphones have become a mainstream part of today's mobile devices," said Bouchard. "And with smartphones and PDAs increasingly attaining laptop-like levels of functionality, they now have a risk profile approaching that of laptops, especially in the area of corporate email. Consequently, it is now time to start treating smartphones in a manner similar to laptops when it comes to information security. A logical first step is to extend the capabilities of existing SSL VPNs to mobile devices."

The smartphone market is growing by over 50% per year, with unit sales of over 50 million projected for 2007. Users utilize their smartphones for a variety of communications tasks, with the primary use being email. Security risks -- whether it be from viruses, lost or stolen devices or otherwise compromised situations -- have dramatically increased, and now must be considered when planning an organization's mobile security strategy. Bouchard outlines a full range of security capabilities that needs to be evaluated, and recommends that secure communications / connections and user authentication in particular get priority since protecting the network and its resources is more crucial than protecting any single device.

"The ideal solution will be one where the same VPN that is already being used to support other devices, such as laptops and remote desktops, can also be used to fully support an organization's smartphones," writes Bouchard. This approach would not only provide necessary encryption, user authentication, device health checking and granular access controls for smartphone users, but would also make it easier for both end users and administrators, while reducing infrastructure costs by leveraging a common solution.