In an article by Patrick Sweeney, vice president of product management, SonicWALL, presented on SC Magazine, Sweeney discusses risks involved from using innovative Apple iOS devices and corporate use of Mac OS computers in the workplace. With the increased use of such devices, criminals are finding these devices more attractive for attack. Sweeney reviews five areas for IT to focus on to protect networks against emerging threats.
“Jailbreaking sidesteps the closed Apple environment to enable the installation of unauthorized applications.
At first, these sideloaded applications focused on consumer workarounds to Apple restrictions on cell carriers or 3G bandwidth. Today, their breadth and use have expanded. And in an attempt to give users access to critical business resources over iOS devices, many IT departments are bypassing Apple restrictions to sideload custom applications. This includes mobile iPad clients that can interact remotely with business applications on network servers or in the cloud.
While the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act legally sanctions jailbreaking, the practice exposes iOS devices to a number of serious issues.
It violates the license agreement, voids the warranty, and can potentially “brick” the device and make it unusable. More importantly, jailbroken devices become vulnerable to malicious manipulation and attacks by trojans, worms and other malware-laden applications. “
