RIM’s BlackBerry 7 is the most enterprise-friendly and secure mobile operating system, according to Trend Micro. The security company compared all four major smartphone platforms, including iOS 5, Android 2.3, Windows Phone Mango and BlackBerry 7, and found that despite losing of its security edge when connected to the consumer-facing BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), the company’s Enterprise Service (BES) is still top-notch.
Though it is being supplanted by Mobile Fusion, which is a cross-platform solution for BlackBerry, iOS and Android, BES is still considered the most secure directive with “corporate-grade security and manageability make this platform the option of choice for the most stringent mobile roles.”
The firm found that iOS is inherently secure due to a sandboxed method of app isolation, so malware cannot infect the whole system if it gets inside a single app. But Apple’s IT-based shortcomings lie in its user-based need to acknowledge individual policies as opposed to RIM’s method of burrowing in and taking hold of the entire OS.
As for Android, while Ice Cream Sandwich is considerably more secure than its Gingerbread predecessor, considering only 2% of the current user base is on the newest OS Trend Micro found it to be untenable as a long-term solution until more users have it. As a result, it evaluated the OS on the vast majority of Android phones, Gingerbread, and found that there are multiple security holes that have not been plugged on a manufacturer or carrier basis. And while users must acknowledge the permissions for each app, there is plenty of chance for negative app interaction, which poses a security risk for users who are not careful of what they download.
Trend Micro acknowledges the push towards Bring Your Own Devices in a corporate setting, and sets the stage for iOS to take a more prominent role in the IT marketplace, as BlackBerry usage continues to shrink despite its increased security potential. That hasn’t stopped the Canadian or US government from increasing its order of BlackBerry devices, though.
Read more about the report at Trend Micro (PDF).
Source: CNW
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