News
End Point Security: Beware use of IPads and Tablets
February 2014 by Colin Tankard, Digital Pathways
The announcement by South Tyneside NHS Trust last week, regarding pursuing a paperless environment, has thrown up issues of data security at the end point. This, at a time when NHS England has postponed its data collaboration exercise due to lack of public understanding.
The use of IPads and Tablets is understandable due to their ease of use and desirability. For the business they enable both time and money savings.
But, they are very dependent on the quality of the application being used that is managing the data as the device can be easily compromised and data leaked.
Says Colin Tankard of data security company Digital Pathways, ‘as a communication tool these devices are excellent. But, if you are thinking of using them where sensitive information is key then make sure you have the right data security applications in place and the correct audit trails.
‘It is good to see that in the case of South Tyneside NHS Trust they are using the GCloud network. I wonder though if they have thought through the protection of the end point i.e. the IPad.
‘With other platforms there are strong robust applications that can control access to the key functions of the operating system many of which operate at the bios level. With the IPad platform applications all run above the OS which means their security is only as good as the application and is open to compromise by any other applications which may have been downloaded or downloaded at a later stage i.e. monitoring software (a Trojan).
‘This brings home the whole issue of BYOD and how companies and public bodies must enforce a strong security policy for end point devices that encompasses business and personal use as well as what data is stored on the device rather than held on a secure cloud environment.’
