McAfee customers: BYOD security products are still 'immature'

IT leaders attending FOCUS 12 express deep reservations about BYOD security offerings

McAfee customers believe that mobile device security is still an "immature" area of the market, with two companies telling Computing at McAfee's FOCUS 12 conference in Las Vegas that they still have no plans to adopt BYOD until technology improves.

Corey Cush, assistant vice-president of infrastructure services at New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), and Gene Fredriksen, global information security officer of security, fire protection and flow control firm Tyco, were both adamant that BYOD was not secure or developed enough to integrate into their corporate strategy.

Despite McAfee's own Enterprise Mobility Management solution reaching its 10th version this year, Fredriksen described the BYOD protection industry as "an immature market place".

"What you have to do is make it perform within the risk profile of the company," said Fredriksen.

"There is stuff coming out that allows you to protect the data and secure the device, and we're working hard doing evaluations and working towards that. So when that happens, we'll be there with everyone."

Fredriksen mentioned how, rather than trusting mobile device management (MDM) solutions, he is keeping an eye on Android's in-house security measures for its mobile devices.

"I've been tracking what Android is doing with its latest releases of operating systems, which I'm sure will allay some of my fears, but otherwise we want to keep it to a manageable platform."

Fredriksen admitted that the first time he saw a PC that could write to a CD-ROM, he was "convinced we had to kill it. But I've learned over the years, you can't stop technology".

Cush, meanwhile, said the sensitive nature of HHC's medical data meant BYOD was a non-starter at the moment.

"In my field, it's not an application that our group utilises that they would need to walk around with an iPad. It's not a strong business case.

"Currently, we issue BlackBerrys and control them. Right now, we're not mature enough in our framework and structure to support devices in face of the risks associated with BYOD," Cush continued.

"Downloading [patient] records to an iPad or iPhone, and losing that, can cost the corporation millions," said Cush.

"So right now, we're trying to develop a framework associated with that. It's a given we'll have to do it eventually, but we're not there yet.

Cush admitted that HHC will eventually "have to succumb", and suggested that an overall architecture will "probably have to be a sandbox approach, with nothing on the device itself".

McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management's product description boasts that the solution "brings the same level of security and control to mobile devices that IT applies to laptops and desktops".