As advancements in technology happen, the chances for apps becoming more vulnerable to security threats are on the rise. In this age of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) where people need access corporate data, it is becoming more essential to have solutions that properly secure the enterprise application and its data. This is the scenario where MAM (Mobile Application Management) should be taken into consideration.

What is it and why?

MAM(Mobile Application Management), as the name indicates takes full advantage of only the applications that are to be controlled/managed over the air without taking full control of user owned devices. As companies have started adopting the BYOD approach for their employees to use their enterprise applications and access corporate data on their own personal devices, it does not make much sense to adopt MDM (Mobile Device Management) approach that takes full control of user’s personal devices and allows them to control the user devices or their personally owned apps with pass codes. In such instances, MAM comes to rescue and allows the IT administrators to have more specific controls over specific applications and ensures that the application specific data are being sand boxed from user’s personal data without compromising user’s privacy and their personal experience on the device.

To be considered in MAM

While most MAM tools allows the users to adopt BYOD and with mobile platforms support  OS updates and facilitating sharing data between other apps, it is important to choose an MAM tool that tracks the versions over the period of updates and provides improvised experience for the customers. Here are few basic things to be considered on choosing an MAM tool for you application,

  • Ensure the MAM tool abides to DLP (Data Loss Prevention) policies and understand the DLP capabilities of the MAM tool before choosing one.
  • Ensure the tool uses proper encryption technique for containerization of app data, which does not rely on any device specific or OS specific encryption techniques.
  • Put front your security needs for the application and verify whether the policy sets defined by the MAM tool satisfies them.
  • Ensure the tool extends support for multiple mobile platforms. It might not make sense to adopt different tool for different platforms.
  • Ensure the MAM tool deploys basic security measures like remote app locking, data wiping, jailbreak detection, secured data sharing between apps, app containerization etc.
  • It is better to have the tool deployed with reporting and tracking strategies, enabling the corporate heads to have a track on app usage and performance statistics.

In the next blog we will pick one MAM tool, how it can be implemented and how it fares on the parameters listed above.

 

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