By Mitt Sharma and Patrick Ancipink
It is a proud milestone to see IBM achieve Samsung’s Knox Validated accreditation for IBM Security Maas360. This collaboration between IBM and Samsung was initiated to boost the confidence of our mutual customers when they deploy our joint solution in their most critical environments.
IBM support for services such as Knox Mobile Enrollment (KME) for easy bulk enrollment and for device firmware management (E-FOTA) have existed for some time now. The Knox Platform for Enterprise (KPE) features that are supported by IBM via the Knox Service Plugin (KSP) truly bring sophisticated differentiation for advanced security and management of Android devices. To be sure, KPE includes a comprehensive set of features but I’d like to highlight my top five favorites.
- Disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning for location accuracy – This is a critical feature if you are looking to improve the security of deployed devices. If a “honeypot” is gathering intelligence from devices within its range, it will not be able to identify the device because device identity will not be broadcast. Any attack first needs to be able to identify the target prior to commencing said attack. This feature is designed to thwart a gateway attack vector which is identifying the target device.
- Desktop Experience (DeX) – This feature is just coolness right out of the box. Samsung DeX seamlessly transforms your Galaxy smartphone or tablet into a desktop workstation with full screen capacity on a separate display to give you extra screen real estate when connected to an external monitor. Enabling DeX is especially critical as employees are looking for every tool to be flexible and productive as they work from home. To help maintain compliance and security, MaaS360 enforces enterprise policies with granular DeX management features. IT admins can control the look and feel of the enterprise DeX view and implement security features such as disabling apps in DeX mode only. IBM MaaS360 enables KSP policies to ensure remote workers are connected, protected and secure.
And it’s simple: just plug a DeX-enabled Samsung mobile device into a display via an HDMI cable and voilà, you get an optimized virtual desktop environment that has granular policy and security management from MaaS360. Don’t have a monitor? No worries, just download the Samsung DeX app for Windows or mac and connect your Samsung mobile device to your laptop computer to get the optimized virtual desktop environment.
- FireWall and Proxy - Not all small and medium businesses have dedicated hardware or software based firewall appliances deployed. A firewall and proxy available right within your MaaS360 console protects your Samsung devices even if businesses do not have a traditional firewall.
- Boot Banner and Lock Screen –These branding features bring tremendous value for enterprises looking to custom brand their solutions that run on Samsung devices. Enterprises can rebrand the boot animation and lock screen whether it’s for custom branded kiosked solutions or managed service partners (MSPs) looking to custom brand their device-as-a-service (DaaS) offerings. MaaS360 enables the Knox options that enterprises need to manage their brand awareness on deployed Samsung endpoints.
- Network Platform Analytics (NPA) – For customers with more mature mobility programs, NPA provides device level analytics that can be leveraged as part of a broader security strategy.
In addition to the features above, IBM Security Maas360 unlocks many more capabilities on Samsung devices via the Knox Service Plugin to help our joint customers optimize security, manageability and productivity.
Congratulations to the IBM and Samsung teams involved to make this happen!