The Four Levels of Modern IT Security: Does Your Enterprise Have Them Covered?

Though information technology hasn't quite broken the traditional security paradigm, mobility has done a decent enough job to warp it out of shape. Today's security teams have to defend against far more than the odd intrusion attack or malicious app. Security perimeters have dissolved, and threat surfaces accept broadened significantly.

This means that in today'southward mural, there are multiple levels at which your organisation tin exist compromised. Thusly, you need to layer defense at each aspect, of which there are four to consider:

Network Level – Borders have their Limitations

Network-level security comprises mostly everything on the 'traditional' security front—firewalls, authentication, and network encryption, to proper noun a few. These tools are yet essential to securing your enterprise; new threats such as spear-phishing attacks and unsecure file sharing don't negate old-fashioned ones like traffic flooding or buffer overflows.

At the same time, network controls on their own aren't sufficient. A firewall may keep an attacker out, but it can't protect files outside its perimeter. Encryption may protect network communications from intrusion, but information technology doesn't stop a careless employee from forwarding an electronic mail to someone who shouldn't be reading it.

Device Level – Attackable and Hackable

In addition to network-level security, device-level security is i layer that most security teams already cover. Passwords, total-drive encryption, and device containers are all incorporated into nearly user devices to one caste or another. Microsoft'southward BitLocker, for instance, allows the user to harden an entire drive against intrusion, while Samsung KNOX allows the creation of a separate work and personal profile, walling corporate data off from individual.

As with network-level controls, device security is necessary, but it also shouldn't be your only line of defense. Difficult disk encryption can be broken, while passwords and PINS can exist cracked. And device-level controls aren't ever reliable, either – they vary past device and manufacturer.

Application Level – Containers Are Important

Malware aside, unsecure applications represent a significant take a chance for businesses, particularly those with burgeoning mobile initiatives. Information leakage remains a consistent threat, with 46.2% of apps on iOS and 86.7% of apps on Android exhibiting privacy-invasive behaviors, and user privacy is an ever-growing business.

By locking down your business organisation-critical apps with a device-contained containerisation tool similar that used in the Good Secure Enterprise Mobility Management Suites, you can keep your organization'southward information condom from bad apps and concrete theft.

File Level – Your Terminal Line of Defense

Finally, we've got security controls at the file-level and information technology is here where BlackBerry WatchDox comes in. Fifty-fifty if an attacker somehow manages to crack a device or make information technology into your network; even if a negligent employee shares documents with someone they shouldn't, file security represents a 2d layer of defense. It ensures that even if your disquisitional files leave the firewall and air current up in the easily of a third party, you never lose command of them.

Having considered all four will ensure several factors have been covered:

Files are protected by end-to- terminate encryption at-rest, in-transit, on-server, or on-device.
Through the BlackBerry WatchDox digital rights management, administrators have control over whether a user can access, view, edit, copy, impress, download, or forward a sensitive file. Permissions can exist inverse at whatever fourth dimension.
With Email Protector, electronic mail attachments sent through your server tin can automatically be wrapped in the BlackBerry WatchDox DRM, protecting against both accidental and malicious sharing via e-mail.
Customised watermarks, timed expiration, and file tracking deter bad actors inside your organisation.
A spotlight viewer that blurs the screen everywhere but the mouse pointer protects against theft via screen capturing.
BlackBerry WatchDox's Content Connectors integrate with the majority of leading file repositories, assuasive you to extend its protections to existing infrastructure without meaning cost.

Encryption can exist broken and if encryption's all you lot rely on, if you lot've no secondary protections, that means your information is at risk. With a multi-tiered approach to security, you tin protect yourself at every layer. That is what BlackBerry, and its industry counterparts and rivals, hope to achieve. Y'all can encrypt the hard drive and network communications, place apps inside the secure Skillful container and identify files inside WatchDox.