How to achieve mobile productivity without sacrificing security

One of the most pressing issues for modern businesses is cybersecurity. In fact our own customers confirmed that security is their #1 Technology priority in our 2018 Customer Satisfaction Survey. Every day, competitive enterprises accelerate the pace of digital transformation with the adoption of cloud, mobility, IoT, BYOD, the list could go on… but it’s critical to balance these technologies with measures to protect against increasingly complex, sophisticated and evolving security threats.

In the last decade, a number of companies have emerged as leaders in the ongoing war against cyberthreats. However, one may surprise you. Every year they invest more than a billion dollars in security research and development¹, with the unique data, insights and breakthroughs generated, feeding directly into their industry-leading security solutions. They develop products that work in tandem with each other to create seamless solutions that deliver a holistic, agile, security platform for today’s enterprise. The company? Microsoft.

Sacrifical Security

Most professionals would agree that mobile devices are critical productivity tools. However, according to the Ponemon Institute, an independent research firm dedicated to privacy, data protection and information security policy, 51% of people do not take any steps to protect their mobile data². The impact of this is witnessed when crisis hits; 67% of IT and security pros are reporting that their organisation has experienced a breach as a result of a mobile device³.

For many organisations, mobility initiatives have boiled down to security vs operability. Nearly a third (32%) of companies surveyed in a 2018 report admitted to sacrificing mobile security to improve business performance⁴. This either/ or mindset is fundamentally flawed; the study also found that:

The launch of Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility + Security

Therefore in 2014, Microsoft announced the launch of a suite of new products to address the evolving cyber risk in enterprise mobility. At the time, CEO Satya Nadella heralded their Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) as “the most comprehensive and complete platform for organisations to embrace these mobility and cloud trends”.

Indeed, the EMS suite marked the next generation of enterprise security by going beyond traditional endpoint defences to better detect attacks and accelerate enterprise response capabilities.

The suite of security products has subsequently evolved and expanded since the initial release in 2014 to now be called the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EM+S) Suite.

Security and user experience

If a security solution is not simple and intuitive to use, it will not be embraced by end users. Ultimately, it will hinder employee productivity as people seek to circumvent the inconvenient process.

With EM+S, enterprises can achieve a balance of security and end user empowerment, with effective security controls across identity, device, data, apps and infrastructure. It’s simple to use and embed within the native tools people use every day – crucial for end user adoption. For example, EM+S offers control and flexibility when managing applications on mobile devices. From single sign-on through to administrators enabling access to specific applications for certain users or user groups, the control comes down to enterprise requirements.

EM+S helps enterprises better protect user and company data, allowing you to safely answer ‘yes’ to the following critical considerations:

1. Do you know who is accessing your data?
2. Can you grant access to your data based on risk in real-time?
3. Can you protect your data on devices in the cloud and in transit?
4. Can you quickly react to a breach?
5. Do your users love their work experience?

The key components of EM+S

The comprehensive, cloud-based offering brings together four leading Microsoft products:

Azure Active Directory Premium (Azure AD) – a collection of features for Microsoft’s identity management as a service (IDaaS) platform. Azure AD helps centralise identity and access management to enable deep security, productivity and management across devices, data, apps and infrastructure.

Microsoft Intune – helps to meet your organisational data protection needs while delivering an excellent user experience. The flexible solution includes a diverse set of tools for managing complex mobile environments – mobile application management and device management options. See how to uninstall unwanted Windows 10 applications with Intune.

Azure Rights Management (ARM) – designed to protect corporate data by allowing more secure access to company resources, while enabling safe sharing of sensitive information – internally or externally. Utilising encryption, identity and authorisation policies, cloud-based ARM secures files and email, and works across multiple devices – phones, tablets, and desktops.

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics – offers the intelligence to learn, analyse and identify normal and suspicious user or device behaviour. By quickly detecting suspicious activity, it reduces the risk of costly damage and displays the information in a clear, real-time view of the attack timeline.

One solution, easy pricing

Choosing Microsoft EM+S for your enterprise is a giant step towards protecting and securing your data. With two levels available, enterprises can select from both the level of protection and price per user that best suits their needs. We recommend taking an in-depth look at the additional E5 features before making a choice.

E3 Enterprise Mobility + Security
As the ‘original’ version of EM+S, this choice includes the ‘P1’ versions of Azure Active Directory and Azure Information Protection, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics.

E5 Enterprise Mobility + Security
This solution includes all products in E3 with a few key additions. E5 includes the ‘P2’ version of Azure Active Directory – including updated identity protection and privileged identity management. Intelligent data classification and labelling is also included. This allows the configuration of policies to automatically classify and label data based on sensitivity and then apply persistent protection. E5 also offers Microsoft cloud app security, for better visibility, control, and protection for your enterprise-wide cloud-based apps.

Reach out to a Data^#3 consultant below to discuss EM+S further, and confirm you aren’t paying for a product you may already be entitled to.

Helping you stay ahead

At Data^#3 we know that cybersecurity is not simply a product, but a process. That’s why we offer a range of security solutions suited for modern enterprises looking for the edge. Comprising of four critical components – Prepare, Protect, Detect, Respond – our comprehensive security framework forms the basis of our engagement to ensure you understand your cybersecurity risk and assist in adequately securing your environment.

If your organisation is looking to embrace anytime, anywhere access and collaboration initiatives, or would like to ensure your mobility security is firing on all cylinders, get in touch below.