Israeli company Trusteer is taking its Rapport secure browsing technology into mobile security for the first time, announcing a smartphone and tablet protection system for businesses, Secure Web Access.
Designed to pair software running on enterprise gateways with a lightweight secure browser, the underlying technology is an extension of the Trusteer Secure Web Access launched last year, which in turn builds on the companys Rapport browser plug-in technology.
This time the problem is securing mobile access, a challenge given the disparate range of devices which with the exception of the BlackBerry were not designed to be used securely by businesses.
Layer one of the protection offered is a policy-based device assessment undertaken when a smartphone requests to connect to the gateway, after which the presence of rogue apps, vulnerabilities and Trusteers mobile client is factored.
Those passing this assessment are given access to resources based on set policies, with real-time logging and access monitoring of those rules.
Mobile devices supported cover all the usual candidates, including the iPad/iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, with others being added as those devices become more popular. Particular attention will have to be paid to tablets as those devices could start supplanting laptops in some businesses in the next two years.
IT departments are under pressure from the executive suite all the way to the departmental level to allow employees to use tablets and mobile devices to connect to secure web resources, said Trusteer CEO, Mickey Boodaei. The Trusteer Secure Mobile Browser Service is an elegant, quick and easy to deploy solution for enterprises that want to minimise the threat associated with mobile device connectivity to business applications, he said.
As to detecting malware, an obvious question is how Trusteer can be sure it can detect a phenomenon that barely exists in terms of real-world threats. The companys answer is that it modelled the direction of mobile malware on Android say using the type of attacks encountered in the Windows and PC world.
The companys heritage in this is respectable and only this week it admitted that in addition to developing its own software it has had to defend its primary technology, the Rapport browser security tool, against attacks seeking to disable it.
Secure Web Access is available immediately with pricing quoted as starting at 25 ($35) per device, per year.