Is 2012 Year of the Android attack Enterprise?

For the CIO, the year 2012 will be one of great opportunity and tremendous risk as Android phones and tablets drive over to the company, experts say mobile devices. CIOs will be in a little bind by pressing IT employees to support the newfangled devices that consumers may not enterprise-ready.

First, the opportunity.

Android rocketed to the Enterprise
A big reason people want Android, iPhone and iPads mainly is because they know they can do their work better with them. Smart CIOs will cut through the confusion and look the iPad what it is: an opportunity to get out of the technical pitfalls that have been isolated from the business side of IT for decades.

"Some of the best of us would say good riddance" to the old ways, Aaron Freimark, IT director at Tekserve Apple's corporate services, which helps Fortune 1000 companies adopting the iPad. "Now we can concentrate on having people be productive with technology." Thus was launched by PCWorld, Sunday (11/27/2011).

Android devices follow the same trajectory of the rocket for companies such as the iPhone. Mobile Device Management MobileIron seller claims to have obtained 1000 new enterprise customers in the last 10 months. At least 50 percent of the customer base MobileIron is deploying Android devices, especially in the pilot program. (Today, Apple claims nine out of 10 Fortune 400 companies are deploying or testing iPhone and iPads.)

"As companies prepare for 2012, we expect increased pressure to adopt Android," said Ojas Rege, vice president of products at MobileIron. "There will be a surge of Android devices coming into the company after the holidays and the spike in the second half of this year as the device is further enhanced."

That is, the fired-up will help to encourage owners of Android Android devices currently in pilot phase for large-scale enterprise deployment next year. All of which begs the question: Is Android device ready?

Acts of 2011: Mobile Malware

The openness of the Android platform, along with many flavors of the OS, hardware, and configuration of the operator, came together to create a rich breeding ground for malware - despite claims to the contrary by Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manager. Trend Micro, for example, reported a 1410 percent increase in the number of threats defeat Android from January to July this year.

"Google's Android OS has become a magnet malware," wrote blogger CIO.com Constantine von Hoffman. "Its dominance as a smartphone platform security risks turning it into a much larger than the Apple iPhone."

To be fair, Good Technology Nicko van Someren CTO predicts Apple iPhone icons, often heralded as a malware-free since curated the App Store, will also be the target of sophisticated attacks in the coming year. He cited the ability to jailbreak your iPhone with one single tap on Jailbreakme.com, thus opening the device for malware.

"The technology makes use of potentially Jailbreakme.com used by bad guys," said van Someren. In other words, malicious code writers might be able to jailbreak the iPhone without the owner knowing about it.

Researchers Charlie Miller recently wrote a malicious application that looks like a stock-market monitoring tools, and get past the eye examination process control App Store. This application will connect to the server and allows him to download malware onto your iPhone. Thus, Miller suggests that a malicious application may already be in the App Store.

CIO in Tough Spot

Android vendors are working to shore up security issues. "We will see an increase in the number of steps taken by vendors such as Google and mobile phone vendors to lock down their systems and make them less vulnerable to malware," said van Someren.

But herein lies the rub. CIOs face when employees want to plug their consumer Android device to the network, while waiting for vendors to get the device as close to the company's Android-ready as possible. Lag between the two forces will put CIOs in a tough spot next year.

Just take a look at $ 200 Amazon Kindle tablet of Fire, which, by many accounts, should have a great holiday season. New Kindle owners of the Fire will likely want to receive at least the corporate email on the device, which runs the Android 2.3 OS Gingerbread adjusted. As a result, Kindle Fires have the potential to burn the company.

MobileIron consider technical criteria when evaluating tools to support the management suite of mobile devices: The device must have the ability to encrypt data, remotely configure mail, password lock and delete support, secure connectivity to configure, deploy applications, and establish the identity of the certificate.

"Amazon Kindle Fire none of these things," says Rege.

Most CIOs have taken a conservative approach to Android, but it may not be able to resist much longer lines. "Is the CIO like it or not, corporate data may be made to this device," said van Someren. "Unless you have received this device, you will find yourself bitten by the fact that you do not have control of the data after the fact."