Latin America. Pokémon Go is among us and it is clearly seen on the streets as augmented reality has us trapped. "Hunting Pokémon" is the new fad and the numbers speak for themselves: Pokémon Go grossed $200 million in just one month, is one of the most downloaded apps, and averages daily usage is 26 minutes. But it's also one more app that adds to the list of end-user apps that have the potential to put companies' corporate information at risk. Do you know how?
Today, the information we use to work coexists with our personal data on the same device. To make it more tangible, when we talk about "information to work" we refer – for example – to customer contact details, designs of a new product to be launched, financial information, among other vital data for the company. And it is precisely at this point that these applications can trigger a security disaster if companies do not have tools that protect their data and corporate applications.
On the one hand, when it comes to such a massive phenomenon, it is also a more than interesting target for hackers to seek to develop malware or look for the gateway to the data contained in the device used to play. But this doesn't just happen with Pokémon Go; for example in Whatsapp, the communication application of undoubted popularity, hackers look for everything from inserting advertising to obtain income with it, to stealing users' bank accounts and other data contained in their phones. Many more applications exposed to this we can name and surely many more will emerge susceptible to being interesting for hackers.
On the other hand, if we start from the assumption that users do not read the privacy policies before downloading an application, we could say that by downloading them we are giving them access or potential access to a lot of data stored on the device. Both private and corporate data. In this way, a seemingly innocent smartphone can become a leakage point for critical information and a headache for companies that want to give flight to business mobility strategies or BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs.
Faced with this scenario, Pokémon Go comes to remind companies that they must worry about starting to separate the work life of the personal life of the devices of their employees. And in this sense, technologies such as virtualization and mobile device management are key tools to achieve this. Virtualization allows you to keep data centralized in the datacenter and encrypted; in this way, employees only access a virtual image of the information and the data is never stored on the device they are using. The management of mobile devices allows to separate corporate information from personal information and have visibility over who accesses what information, among other security measures.
The furor of Pokémon Go has just begun and more and more attractions will be added that invite us to play. Therefore, IT departments must find the best way to protect data without applying the old "prohibit" policy and betting on creating an IT infrastructure that guarantees the security of corporate data regardless of what game the user wants to download, and without affecting their experience of use. Today the debate is started by Pokémon Go, but many more options will surely come.
Text written by: Ernesto Kling, Citrix Regional Mobility Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean.
