Published
Sep 08 2018 05:09 AM
678
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First published on CloudBlogs on Oct, 31 2014
There was an interesting survey
recently published by Ovum
that looked at enterprise end users and their concerns about bringing their own devices into work (BYO). The research revealed that the number one concern of both enterprises end-user is “a lack of trust in employers and a lack of faith that individual privacy will be protected.”
As an industry, we talk a great deal about containers and how container technology enables us to keep corporate data separate from personal data. Our conversations are really focused on corporate data and securing that corporate data. There are definitely two sides to this coin: Containers provide a level of protection for corporate data, but it also provides a level of protection for the end-user as well. For example, consider your smart phone; chances are it is a very personalized device. In many ways, our phones become an extension of us – they contain personal content in e-mail, texts, photos, financial information – and we don’t want IT venturing into any of this. As we have been building our Mobile Application Management capabilities, we have defined scenarios that apply to protecting corporate information as well as protecting the users information.
Now when we talk about MAM, a lot of the conversation is really about “containing” corporate apps and corporate data and keeping it separate from the personal apps and data. The
very first app that every organization wants protected
is, of course, corporate e-mail. Next on the list is corporate web content, and third is corporate files. These three things represent the first tier of apps that need to protected, and the next tier is largely made up of internal line of business apps.
In previous posts, I’ve talked about
layered data protection
, as well as a
Secure E-mail
workflow (which is often the on-ramp into documentation collaboration). In this post I’m going to dig into the document workflow and look at how the work we’ve done enables end-users to be productive on the go
and
protect corporate data.
In organizations all over the world, the following user scenario occurs every day with lots of end-users:
An information worker is using an Android device that has previously been enrolled for management and it is complying with the IT-defined MDM policies (
e.g.
setting a device PIN). This is the
first
layer of protection
(the device).
Next, the worker self-provisions a set of apps to his/her device – some are company specific (like an expense reporting app), and others are ISV apps being delivered from the various stores (like Word or OneDrive for Business).
The worker now needs to create some content and post to the company website, so he/she opens Word. Behind the scenes, without the end-user even noticing, the configuration of the device is quickly compared with a set of IT policies (
e.g.
does it have a power-on password, is the device encrypted, has it been jailbroken) When the service (Intune) verifies that the device is compliant the app is launched. This is a conditional access policy that is operating at the App layer.
Once the post is done and ready for review, it is saved to OneDrive for Business within Word so that colleagues can review and edit the document – this is allowed by the MAM policy. Because this device and profile are still compliant, the app launches and the authoring begins. Within that post the worker adds a couple links to company videos and some images pulled from SharePoint via OneDrive for Business. When the author needs to test the links, a list of managed apps that can open that content pops up.
Elsewhere in the post, there’s a need for data that currently sits in an Excel file. The worker can easily open that file on a device and copy charts into the post since Excel is also policy managed. Once the post is done and ready for review it is saved to OneDrive for Business within Word so all the necessary colleagues can review it – this is allowed by the MAM policy. This is the
second
layer of protection (the app).
The post is further protected on the SharePoint site since the IT Pro configured the document library to automatically apply RMS to all Word documents. This is the
third
layer of protection (the file).
Finally your worker has authenticated with a corporate identity at each step, including authenticating to the SharePoint service using AAD to launch your company apps (with SSO so the user experience is not impacted).
This is the
fourth
layer of protection (the identity).
Now let’s consider the
new components
of this scenario:
There was an interesting survey
recently published by Ovum
that looked at enterprise end users and their concerns about bringing their own devices into work (BYO). The research revealed that the number one concern of both enterprises end-user is “a lack of trust in employers and a lack of faith that individual privacy will be protected.”
As an industry, we talk a great deal about containers and how container technology enables us to keep corporate data separate from personal data. Our conversations are really focused on corporate data and securing that corporate data. There are definitely two sides to this coin: Containers provide a level of protection for corporate data, but it also provides a level of protection for the end-user as well. For example, consider your smart phone; chances are it is a very personalized device. In many ways, our phones become an extension of us – they contain personal content in e-mail, texts, photos, financial information – and we don’t want IT venturing into any of this. As we have been building our Mobile Application Management capabilities, we have defined scenarios that apply to protecting corporate information as well as protecting the users information.
Now when we talk about MAM, a lot of the conversation is really about “containing” corporate apps and corporate data and keeping it separate from the personal apps and data. The
very first app that every organization wants protected
is, of course, corporate e-mail. Next on the list is corporate web content, and third is corporate files. These three things represent the first tier of apps that need to protected, and the next tier is largely made up of internal line of business apps.
In previous posts, I’ve talked about
layered data protection
, as well as a
Secure E-mail
workflow (which is often the on-ramp into documentation collaboration). In this post I’m going to dig into the document workflow and look at how the work we’ve done enables end-users to be productive on the go
and
protect corporate data.
In organizations all over the world, the following user scenario occurs every day with lots of end-users:
An information worker is using an Android device that has previously been enrolled for management and it is complying with the IT-defined MDM policies (
e.g.
setting a device PIN). This is the
first
layer of protection
(the device).
Next, the worker self-provisions a set of apps to his/her device – some are company specific (like an expense reporting app), and others are ISV apps being delivered from the various stores (like Word or OneDrive for Business).
The worker now needs to create some content and post to the company website, so he/she opens Word. Behind the scenes, without the end-user even noticing, the configuration of the device is quickly compared with a set of IT policies (
e.g.
does it have a power-on password, is the device encrypted, has it been jailbroken) When the service (Intune) verifies that the device is compliant the app is launched. This is a conditional access policy that is operating at the App layer.
Once the post is done and ready for review, it is saved to OneDrive for Business within Word so that colleagues can review and edit the document – this is allowed by the MAM policy. Because this device and profile are still compliant, the app launches and the authoring begins. Within that post the worker adds a couple links to company videos and some images pulled from SharePoint via OneDrive for Business. When the author needs to test the links, a list of managed apps that can open that content pops up.
Elsewhere in the post, there’s a need for data that currently sits in an Excel file. The worker can easily open that file on a device and copy charts into the post since Excel is also policy managed. Once the post is done and ready for review it is saved to OneDrive for Business within Word so all the necessary colleagues can review it – this is allowed by the MAM policy. This is the
second
layer of protection (the app).
The post is further protected on the SharePoint site since the IT Pro configured the document library to automatically apply RMS to all Word documents. This is the
third
layer of protection (the file).
Finally your worker has authenticated with a corporate identity at each step, including authenticating to the SharePoint service using AAD to launch your company apps (with SSO so the user experience is not impacted).
This is the
fourth
layer of protection (the identity).
Now let’s consider the
new components
of this scenario:
- MAM data leakage policies
- Policy manageable applications
- Policy managed viewers
- Conditional Access for document services
- Integrated client and service solution
MAM Data Leakage Policies
As I discussed in my App & Data Protection post, Intune provides a set of MAM policies specifically targeted at data leakage. In the scenario above we saw a couple of these in action.Data Sharing Between Apps
In that scenario, data sharing in all three applications (OneDrive for Business, Word and Excel) was restricted to only allow data sharing with other managed apps. This resulted in the user only seeing managed apps as available viewers for the video link (a protocol) in the Word doc. Between-app data can be managed for data incoming to a managed app and also outgoing from a managed app. The options include none (no sharing), policy managed (only other managed apps) and any (any app).Cut/Copy/Paste Between Apps
In the scenario, C/C/P in Excel was restricted to only allow paste into other managed apps. Again, the options include none (no sharing), policy managed (only other managed apps) and any (any app).Saving Data from an App
Some mobile applications support direct saving to the local file system or services via SDKs integrated in the app. In the scenario, Word was allowed to save to OneDrive for Business. The Save As options include enabled (restricts save as) and disabled (allows save as). Other data leakage policies include:- Prevent local and remote file backup – enabled/disabled
- Block screen capture – enabled/disabled
- Encrypt data at rest – yes/no (with platform specific options)