Symantec introduces integrated mobile security and management offering

Symantec has entered the mobile device management space with a combined mobile security and management offering for the enterprise.

Khoi Nguyen, group product manager with Symantec, told FierceMobileIT that it sees a greater security risk for mobile devices as hackers are realizing that an increasing amount of critical data lies in them without much protection.

"There is more confidential information on these devices," Nguyen said. "Initially these were only used for email access and now they access the corporate network. They are truly being used more like computers."

Nguyen said Symantec chose to offer both a mobile security and management offering because of the demand from enterprise customers to do so. Symantec already plays in the integrated security and management space in the PC and laptop world through its 2003 acquisition of Alterus. The mobile solution is based on its existing Symantec Management Platform and enables administrators to centrally define and distribute security policies to mobile devices over the air.

Symantec is offering three new products:

• Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile Edition 6.0, which provides protection for mobile devices against threats and unauthorized access;
• Symantec Network Access Control Mobile Edition 6.0 that works with Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile Edition to enforce compliancy with security policies to ensure that only secure, policy-compliant devices can access the network and email on Microsoft Exchange; and
• Symantec Mobile Management 7.0, which enables over-the-air deployment of applications and updates and manages the lifecycle of the device.

Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile Edition and Symantec Network Access Control Mobile Edition support Windows Mobile, Windows CE, and Symbian mobile devices while the Symantec Mobile Management solution offers support for Windows Mobile and Windows CE mobile devices. Nguyen said Symantec will support other operating systems, such as the iPhone and Android, in the future.

For more:
- see this release

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