McAfee To Boost Mobile Security For Corporate Data

McAfee plans to release next month technology for separating corporate data from personal information on Android smartphones and tablets.

The Intel-owned security vendor said Monday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco that its Enterprise Mobility Management product will include the option of installing a secure container on an Android device for storing corporate data. The container is essentially a separate database for storing and encrypting e-mail, calendar and contacts, Nate Jenniges, director of enterprise and mobile product management, said.

Once data is in the container, it cannot be copied and pasted into other applications. "It really is complete protection of every piece of corporate data on the device," Jenniges said. The technology will support Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes. Options for storing documents are expected to be added later.

Containers for separating corporate data on mobile devices are not new. Sterling, Va.-based Fixmo has the exclusive rights to bring to market similar technology developed by the National Security Agency. The Fixmo container can be used to secure e-mail, calendars and documents on devices running Android or Apple iOS.

In other RSA news, Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee released version 10 of Enterprise Mobility Management. The upgrade includes data security for iOS devices, such as the ability to block users from forwarding corporate e-mail from a personal mail account or backing up corporate data on an iCloud account.

For iOS and Android devices, IT administrators can create a blacklist of applications to prevent them from being installed. In addition, administrators can notify groups of users at once to install EMM upgrades.

McAfee also announced VirusScan Mobile Security for Enterprise. The anti-virus software, which is only for Android devices, scans for malware and can delete malicious files.

EMM version 10 starts at $77 per user for a perpetual license. VirusScan starts at $24 per user. Upgrades and updates of virus signatures are available at no additional cost for the first year.