Security concerns raised over iPad

Use of the Apple iPad for work purposes may cause problems with its ability to forward work email to a web-based email account.

In a review, Proofpoint has claimed that one of the biggest concerns of the Apple iPad related to its email features.

Writing on the Proofpoint blog, chief marketing officer Peter Galvin said that this was one of the biggest concerns of it from both a personal and enterprise security point of view, as it is really easy to set up email access and many users will set up access to some popular web-based email service.

Echoing recent comments made to SC Magazine about scanning outbound webmail accounts, he said: “So, the old ‘forwarding work email to a web-based email account' issue raises its head once again. If your organisation is in any sort of regulated industry (e.g. healthcare/HITECH/HIPAA compliant, financial services/GLBA compliant, retail/PCI-DSS compliant) and you have not deployed technology to scan outbound email for compliance violations (and/or enable email encryption for regulated data), this is a problem.

“Also, once the iPad is unlocked, the email app is right there and any messages that have been downloaded to the device are easily read. Users who expect to take their iPads out into the world a lot should definitely configure the Passcode Lock feature and enable the ‘erase on ten failed attempts' option. Also keep in mind that, unlike devices like BlackBerry, there's currently no way to do a remote wipe of data stored on a lost iPad.”

He also commented that it was strange to surf the web or read email without some sort of third-party anti-virus software installed, but overall iPad does not seem to be any more or less risky than many other consumer devices that can find their way into the enterprise and it actually has more enterprise-friendly security features than you might first expect.

See original article on scmagazineus.com