byod security risk

David Berlind is an expert on enterprise mobility startups and the MC at Under the Radar 2013, May 23, 2013 in San Francisco. He’s also the chief content officer and editor in chief at UBM Tech Media. VentureBeat readers are invited to attend Under the Radar at a discounted price by using code “VentureBeatVIP”. Register today!

The bring your own device (BYOD) trend has kicked into high gear. Enterprises are moving from a primarily homogeneous BlackBerry-only environment (yes, there were exceptions) to more of a heterogeneous anything-goes situation, and the need to levy BlackBerry-grade security (with all of its various options and shades of grey) onto non-BlackBerry environments is off and running.

Buried in those shades of grey are the myriad opportunities that have given rise to innovation and a great many startups.  For example, it’s not just about the ability to remotely wipe out the memory of a device that’s been lost; one that potentially houses sensitive organizational data. Now, it’s very much about partitioning the that sensitive organizational data from the user’s personal information like photos and music in a way that the former can be wiped out without disrupting the latter.

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It’s also about extending to any device the functionality of centrally administered access policies that are enforced by solutions like Microsoft’s Active Directory.  For example, if Joe in the Sales department requires secure access to the latest price sheets that are kept on a Sharepoint server, how does the network know that Joe’s Galaxy S3 is really his S3? What makes us so sure that when the S3 is being used, that it’s Joe who is using it? How is the data encrypted and decrypted during the download process (protecting the data as it’s potentially transmitted over risky WiFi networks)? What prevents Joe from sending (leaking) that price sheet via the Gmail account that’s also connected to his S3?

These and many other security-related questions are the ones being answered by the startups whose solutions will be on stage at the upcoming Under The Radar as well as many UTR alumni.

Below is a partial list of this year’s presenting companies, along with other players in the space. Each has their own unique spin on how to minimize an organization’s risk now that the BYOD trend cannot be stopped.

Appthority

@GetAppthority

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: San Francisco, CA

FOUNDED: June 2011

TEAM: Anthony Bettini, Co-Founder & CEO; Domingo Guerra, Co-Founder & President

FUNDING: Series A – $6.25M; Venrock, US Venture Partners, Gunderson Dettmer

COMPETITORS: Legacy endpoint security companies that are now trying learn mobile

PARTNERS: Appcelerator, Apperian, AppFortify, Arxan, BoxTone, DreamLabs, The Efiia Group, Fixmo, Happtique, IronKey, Joyent, Kaprika Security, LANDesk, Marble Security, Metaforic, Mocana, mSignia, Privacy Choice, Private Core, Quixey

SECRET SAUCE: Appthority helps the enterprise identify and manage the risks hidden in mobile apps. The cloud-based Appthority Platform automatically identifies and grades risky behavior in mobile apps including known and unknown malware, new malware used in targeted attacks, corporate data exfiltration, and intellectual property exposure.

SEEN AND HEARD:SC Magazine, Ars Technica, TMCnet

Armor5

@armor5Inc

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: Santa Clara, CA

FOUNDED: 2012

TEAM: Naveen Ramaiah, Co-Founder; Praveen Banoth, Co-Founder; Suresh Balasubramanian, CEO

FUNDING: Seed – $2M; Trinity Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Citrix Startup Accelerator

SECRET SAUCE: Armor5 is a cloud service provider that’s solving the problem of secure mobile access to enterprise data and applications in a new way. The company serves enterprises, cloud solution providers and any organization struggling to secure network access for mobile users. Armor5 offers the only zero-touch, 100% cloud service that accesses a client’s network, virtualizes enterprise data and applications, and provisions secure and compliant access for every end user using any mobile device.

SEEN AND HEARD:CITEworld, Datamation, Silicon Valley Business Journal, NetworkWorld, VentureBeat

FeedHenry

@feedhenry

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: Burlington, MA

FOUNDED: May 2010

TEAM: Cathal McGloin, CEO

FUNDING: Series A – $9M; Intel Capital, Kernel Capital Partners, VMware, Enterprise Ireland, ACT Venture Capital

COMPETITORS: Appcelerator, Rhomobile, Stackmob, Antennae Software

PARTNERS: Telefonica O2, Telefonica Digital, VMware, ActiveState, Symphony Teleca, HP Cloud Services, Bearing Point, AMTSybex, EMC

CUSTOMERS: PWC, Aer Lingus, My Healthy World, Courtagen, Diageo, RSA, DAA, Network Rail, Glanbia, Health Executive, Enterprise PLC, Health New England, VMWare, Bunzl

SECRET SAUCE: FeedHenry offers a platform-as-a-service for business and enterprise to build cross-platform apps that integrate securely with their business through the cloud. This mobile PaaS allows apps to be developed in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS and deployed to multiple mobile devices from a single code base.

SEEN AND HEARD: VentureBeat, AllThingsD

MobileSpaces

@mobilespaces

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: Washington, D.C.

FOUNDED: 2011

TEAM: David Goldschlag, Founder, CEO, Yoav Weiss, Founder and CTO

FUNDING: Series A – $3M; Accel Partners

COMPETITORS: Good Technology, Enterproid, Mocana

SECRET SAUCE: MobileSpaces helps enterprises mobilize their applications, govern their data, and respect the privacy of their employees. MobileSpaces offers a BYOD Policy Management solutions that protects enterprise apps and data against loss and leakage. MobileSpaces’ App Virtualization technology secures any app on any device, letting the enterprise choose the apps it needs while letting employees chose the devices they want. MobileSpaces is the only solution which allows the enterprise to secure built-in Apps, Public App Stores apps, and Enterprise App Store apps, with no friction.

SEEN AND HEARD: TechCrunch

MobileSpan

@mobilespan

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: Santa Clara, CA

FOUNDED: 2011

TEAM: Nils Bunger, CEO and Co-Founder

FUNDING: Venture – $2.3M

COMPETITORS: Citrix, Watchdox, IonGrid

SECRET SAUCE: MobileSpan lets a company’s workforce be productive from their personal tablets and phones. With MobileSpan, workers can access a company’s internal web applications and documents seamlessly from a MobileSpan app on mobile devices, without VPNs and without creating data security problems. MobileSpan interoperates with all the IT systems that came before it and it can work with existing SharePoint or CMS, file shares, web applications, management tools.   MobileSpan deploys in 60 seconds as a single Windows application inside the corporate network.  MobileSpan requires no changes to corporate DMZs or firewalls, providing an easy way to add tablets and phones to your existing business practices.

SEEN AND HEARD: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Vator.tv, PEhub, CMSwire, TMCnet

Enterproid

@divide

SECTOR: Mobile Enterprise

HEADQUARTERS: New York, NY

MANAGEMENT: Andrew Toy, CEO & Co-Founder

FUNDING: Total – $13M. Genacast Ventures, NYC Seed, High Peaks Venture Partners, BOLDstart Ventures, Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Comcast Ventures

COMPETITORS: MobileSpaces

SECRET SAUCE: Enterproid helps organizations and individuals get the most out of mobile technology and corporate BYOD policies by providing a dual-persona user experience that is secured and cloud-managed by IT. Enterproid’s flagship Divide™ platform combines cloud-based management with advanced on-device technology that ensures enterprise security and control without compromising personal freedom and privacy.

SEEN AND HEARD: VentureBeat, NetworkWorld

V-Key

SECTOR:  Mobile Security

HEADQUARTERS:  Redwood City, CA

FOUNDED: 2012

TEAM: Benjamin Mah, Co-founder and CEO; Joseph Gan, Co-founder and CTO

FUNDING: Series A – $4M; IPV Capital

SECRET SAUCE: V-Key’s V-Guard suite of technology is a revolutionary next generation comprehensive mobile apps security solution protecting the mobile application sphere from threats of known and unknown application-level attacks. Equipped with mobile threat intelligence analytics, V-Guard provides a comprehensive real-time threat dashboard and reporting ensuring mobile app threat awareness and compliance reporting.

SEEN AND HEARD: The Next Web

Bonus companies

Capriza

Domo

Roambi

Skygiraffe

Mocana

Top image courtesy of igor1308, Shutterstock

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