Are Consumer Apps Sufficient for Securing Enterprise Communications?

Consumer secure voice and texting apps are taking off – and for good reason. Many understand the vulnerabilities in regular, non-secured communications and want to ensure privacy and security. The fact that so many people are downloading secure consumer apps, including WhatsApp or Signal is an indication that people understand and are ‘fighting back’ the worldwide surveillance and interception of calls and messages.

While personal information is at risk and is best secured, the threat to the enterprise is even greater – because in addition to personal information, intellectual property, financial data, customer information, HR data, and much more is at risk. Government entities, criminals, competitors and hackers have significant amount to gain from intercepting business people’s communications, including phone calls and text messages.

Enterprise-ready Management and Policy Enforcement

Consumer-based products are positioned with the individual in mind – without enterprise controls, oversight, services or support. When employees use consumer apps for securing voice and text, no management or policy enforcement exists. There is no means of pushing the app to employees or even visibility into who has and has not downloaded the app, or from those who have downloaded the app, whether they are actually using the app. Integration with enterprise systems such as MDM, ERP, CRM or billing software is not available via APIs. And critically, when an employee leaves the organization – the employee takes the app with them, along with all the company data contained within the app. And no one has knowledge of what is contained within the app, or the ability to remove it.

Enterprises require a secure communication solution that offers security and privacy with oversight and policy enforcement, and includes enterprise-grade features.

Compatibility with MDM

Enterprises require policy enforcement and oversight in ensuring that sensitive information is communicated securely between employees. Compatibility with MDM enables administrators to push the secure communications app to employees and provides visibility into who has and has not downloaded and installed the app.

Reporting

Reporting provides administrators with visibility into those employees that are using the app –enabling oversight of adoption of the secure communications app. If your employees aren’t using the app, chances are they are communicating sensitive information through a different channel.

Customer Training and Support

Enterprises require deployment setup and training, as well as various kinds of service and support. Initial setup and training ensures the security solution is deployed properly and in its entirety, and enables internal tech support to troubleshoot basic issues. Ongoing customer support ensures that the solution is up and running within the enterprise and someone is available to assist you. Employees should not have to resort to insecure modes of communications because the secure app is not working.

Integration with Enterprise Business Systems

An enterprise-ready secure communications tools enables seamless integration with organizations’ existing infrastructure and core systems. This enables organizations to build on their existing infrastructure by merging secure communications with processes already in place as well as extend their mobile assets.

Revoking Access

When an employee leaves an organization, it is important that internal communications, including text messages, are no longer available on their device.  In addition, the company will want to terminate the secure channel between the former employee and current employees and customers.

Why Companies need Enterprise Secure Communications

While secure communications is a good first step in ensuring that employees speak securely, it does not provide enterprise management and policy enforcement – including compatibility with MDM, reporting, customer training and support, integration with business systems and revoking access; all of which should be incorporated into enterprise strategy.

KoolSpan’s TrustCall provides an enterprise-grade solution for enterprises and government organizations – providing the oversight, support, and policy enforcement necessary to implement secure communications across an enterprise. For more information on how to implement TrustCall across your organization, contact KoolSpan.