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How to Leverage MTD Solutions to Comply with NIST 800-124r2 Guidelines

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How to Leverage MTD Solutions to Comply with NIST 800-124r2 GuidelinesHow to Leverage MTD Solutions to Comply with NIST 800-124r2 Guidelines

Prior to the global pandemic, we were beginning to see a shift in companies realizing the need for mobile device and app security. Private and public sector organizations alike, began to see how hackers were breaching and compromising mobile devices and – in turn – putting their employees and the companies themselves at risk. 

And then came COVID-19. And that understanding became even more apparent. 

COVID-19 created a situation unlike anything many of us have ever seen; yet one that will likely leave permanent changes in how we protect our workforce. With the overnight switch towards entire workforces working remotely from home – on all variety of corporate and personal (bring your own) devices – IT and security teams turned to triage mode from a security and risk perspective.

We observed an immediate change to the mobile threat landscape related to COVID-19 which reinforced the need for mobile threat defense (MTD) solutions as a critical way to protect your users, devices and organization.

We weren’t alone in noticing significant growth in coronavirus-related attacks. Our partner – Google – and others reported:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is providing guidance through its Guidelines for Managing the Security of Mobile Devices in the Enterprise. 

Within the report – known as 800-124r2 – NIST talks about the importance of mobile threat defense (MTD) and mobile device management (MDM) solutions when protecting mobile devices. MTD solutions detect and prevent mobile device, network, phishing and malicious app attacks.  An MDM is a management tool. It allows compliant devices to access corporate email, apps via the corporate app store, and data, and it secures data-in-transit between the mobile device and the corporate network. 

The latest NIST 800-124 draft says:

  • MTD systems provide real-time, continuous monitoring, assessing apps after deployment to a mobile device as well as during runtime;
  • MTD can detect and protect the mobile device, apps and end-user against attacks via the wireless network;
  • MTD systems also may detect attacks against an app or OS software;
  • Side-loaded apps may be special-purpose, enterprise-loaded, or whitelisted apps specified by the enterprise;
  • MTD systems monitor the on-the-fly behavior of mobile apps within the current mobile environment, such as when the app navigates to known malicious URLs or phishing sites;
  • Unexpected interactions among apps or use of data on the user device (e.g., the app accesses a device owner’s “contacts” or “location”) also may alert an MTD system to potentially malicious or risky behavior; and
  • Mobile app vetting to detect software or configuration flaws that may create vulnerabilities or violate enterprise security or privacy policies. 

Zimperium is the global leader in mobile device and app security, offering real-time, on-device protection against Android and iOS threats.  What differentiates Zimperium from other MTD providers is the following:

You simply cannot have zero-trust unless your devices are continuously protected, even when disconnected from the Internet. On-device and always-on detections and remediations are absolutes in the realm of mobile security.  

Remember, the bad guys only need to get it right once, and you don’t want to rely on a cloud connection solution. Zero-day/zero click attacks are now common, and signature based defenses along with cloud “calls” are obsolete.  

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and newly found Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) from nation sponsored attacks continuously test the new perimeter. Current mobile technologies, like MDMs, VPNs, or MFAs – which are not designed to perform threat detection –  are not sufficient against these attacks.   

To learn more about how Zimperium can address your mobile device security needs, please contact us. We are here to help.

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How to Leverage MTD Solutions to Comply with NIST 800-124r2 Guidelines

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Zimperium Mentioned in Several Gartner Hype Cycles

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Zimperium Mentioned in Several Gartner Hype CyclesZimperium Mentioned in Several Gartner Hype Cycles

Every year Gartner publishes more than 100 “Hype Cycles” for buyers of technology which are refreshed and published every July because the third quarter is typically a planning quarter for technology buyers. Zimperium, the global leader in mobile device and app security, is a part of several Hype Cycles, including:

  • Hype Cycle for Frontline Worker Technologies, 2020 (July 7, 2020; Leif-Olof Wallin and Rob Smith) – A frontline worker’s job tasks are often drastically different than those of a desk-based worker, requiring different and optimized solutions. I&O leaders responsible for mobility for frontline workers should evaluate the technologies in this Hype Cycle.
  • Hype Cycle for Privacy, 2020 (July 23, 2020; Bart Willemson and Bernard Woo) – Security and risk management leaders managing technology, information and resilience risk must consider privacy a top priority. Laws and privacy-preserving technologies that protect business value and build trust with individuals are covered in depth to support prioritization of risk and investment.
  • Hype Cycle for Application Security, 2020 (July 27, 2020; Mark Horvath) – Today’s pace of application development is continuously accelerating, giving way to complex, interconnected software systems. Security and risk management leaders need to adopt innovations in the application security space to handle the growing complexity.

Each report provides thorough analysis and is a great source of research. Today, I’d like to talk a little about Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Endpoint Security, 2020 (July 15th 2020; Dionisio Zumerle and Rob Smith) which tracks the innovations that aid security leaders in protecting their enterprise endpoints from attacks and breaches. Security leaders are asked to protect endpoints from attacks, while also allowing access from any device to any application over any network, with minimal impact on user experience.

From a mobile security perspective, the comprehensive report provides many compelling insights. I’d like to examine two points:

  • “Increasingly mobile devices are involved in advanced attacks, sometimes as part of a broader attack. For example, mobile phishing attacks can obtain account credentials that an attacker can reuse against an enterprise API, or on a corporate laptop.
  • “Because of the current lack of visibility on mobile devices, most organizations never identify these portions of the attack. MTD (mobile threat defense) solutions, stand-alone or as part of a broader EDR (endpoint detection and response) or UES (unified endpoint security) deployment, can improve detection of attacks against enterprises.

In our blog – The Ultimate Endpoint – we discuss how mobile security is one of, if not the single most important facet of enterprise security being overlooked or under-supported, therefore posing a massive threat to organizations. While every security team has defense-in-depth solutions protecting desktops and laptops, there is no such depth of protection for mobile devices.

We know an endpoint is an endpoint is an endpoint and enterprises must protect those endpoints – laptops, desktops, mobile devices – that have access to, and/or contain corporate data. 

The reality is, 60 percent of a typical enterprise’s endpoints are mobile devices, and they are unprotected. Another reality is, there are several things an enterprise must consider when looking to protect its endpoints:

  • Mobile device management (MDM) products, virtual private networks (VPN), and multi-factor authentication (MFA), do not protect your device from phishing, network, OS/device, or mobile application vulnerabilities and zero-day threats; 
  • MTD offerings exclusively dependent on a “cloud connection” are inherently sub-standard for continuous protection;
  • On-device and always-on is the only path for enabling zero-trust mobile operations;
  • With smaller screens, and less space to identify troublesome URLs, phishing detection and prevention is particularly important for mobile;
  • Enterprises require robust administration consoles and features that looks at all the endpoints; and
  • Protecting mobile applications is integral to the overall security of the mobile device.  

To learn more about how Zimperium can protect your enterprises’ mobile devices, please contact us. 

 

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Zimperium Mentioned in Several Gartner Hype Cycles

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