Sophos adds Android capabilities to portfolio

Sophos, which was recently recognised as an enterprise mobility management (EMM) market leader by Forrester, has announced the immediate availability of additional security and device management capabilities for the Android mobile platform. With these solutions IT professionals can now allow employees to take advantage of all that the Android platform has to offer without putting sensitive data at risk, Sophos said. 

"Users in Southeast Asia are no stranger to this trend with both enterprises and consumers riding on the BYOD trend and the explosion of Android devices in the region. As the number of time spent on mobile devices increases, so does the attack vector," said Sumit Bansal, Director for ASEAN at Sophos. "Proactive defense measures should be in place to safeguard their devices." 

Sophos Cloud now features Android support, delivering one central and hosted console for managing both desktops and mobile devices. With a simpler user-centric approach, it helps keep corporate information safe with mobility management features like remote lock, remote wipe, password reset, theft protection, Wi-Fi configuration and Microsoft Exchange setup help.

Sophos Mobile Security brings a new antivirus engine and web protection technology to the Android platform. Without reducing device performance or diminishing battery life, this engine provides malware protection. In fact, Sophos received a perfect 100% Android malware detection rate in the latest AV-Test. 

In addition, Sophos today announced the new Sophos Anti-Malware SDK for Android, which features the core Sophos antivirus engine. The new SDK allows telco providers, mobile carriers and other IT vendors to integrate Android anti-malware technology into their own mobile offerings.

“Well over half of all mobile apps fail basic security measures, and these sobering figures are on the rise,” said Dan Schiappa, Senior VP and GM, end user protection group, Sophos. “Every day the risk is growing, and we're proud to offer the most comprehensive mobile protection for businesses to keep confidential information out of the wrong hands.”

According to Nielsen, mobile users are now spending 30 more hours per month on mobile devices than on their laptops, and cybercriminals are taking notice. SophosLabs has identified over 1 million new and unique pieces of Android malware and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) just since the beginning of 2014. 

Android malware has grown 1,800% over the last two years, by far the fastest growing of any attack surface. Approximately two billion mobile phones and tablets will be shipped this year, 85% of which are Android devices. Three quarters of the apps on those devices will fail basic security tests. With a mix of corporate-owned and employee-owned devices being used for business anywhere and anytime, organisations clearly require a more comprehensive approach to mobile security.