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Ask Slashdot: Equipping a Company With Secure Android Phones?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in charge of getting some phones for my company to give to our mobile reps. Security is a major consideration for us, so I'm looking for the most secure off-the-shelf solution for this. I'd like to encrypt all data on the phone and use encryption for texting and phone calls. There are a number of apps in the android market that claim to do this, but how can I trust them? For example, I tested one, but it requires a lot of permissions such as internet access; how do I know it is not actually some kind of backdoor? I know that Boeing is producing a secure phone, which is no doubt good — but probably too expensive for us. I was thinking of maybe installing Cyanogenmod onto something, using a permissions management app to try and lock down some backdoors and searching out a trustworthy text and phone encryption app. Any good ideas out there?"
I'd like to know how to configure a kludge of shit (using all FOSS, of course) for my enterprise environment. I want everything under the sun plus the kitchen sink.
Also, I'm going to be paranoid and reject anything you propose. After all, I can't be sure that anything I buy doesn't have a backdoor that the government or extra terrestrials could use to snoop on the uber secrets at my company.
Yes, use an iPhone ! Let the flames begin...
You basically described the RIM/Blackberry use case; why not use them? The Bold 9900 is actually a nice phone.
K Man
Because starting from scratch on RIMs BB right now could be suicide...
- New OS devices coming in the fall with a new untested management platform
- Over stock of current gen devices they can't sell ( way under powered compared to WP, Android, iOS)
- Bleeding management
- Laying off huge amounts of staff.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
I know that Boeing is producing a secure phone, which is no doubt good — but probably too expensive for us
If a secure, off the shelf phone is too expensive for you, you probably don't have the resources to build a secure phone yourself. Even the experts have trouble getting security right, an amateur will unknowingly leave big gaping holes.
That said, Android ICS will do full filesystem encryption, make sure you use a secure passphrase and not a 4 digit PIN. Use SSL to talk to your email server to keep that traffic from being snooped. Don't use SMS's.
Do you really need to encrypt your phone calls? Stick with a CDMA provider (supposedly it's trivial to hack GSM, but I believe CDMA is still relatively safe) and your calls are safe from all but the most determined (and well funded) eavesdropper. Unless you're worried about the US Government doing the eavesdropping, they'll just tap the call on the Telco side, so you need end-to-end encryption to protect against that.
Skype reportedly encrypts skype-to-skype calls.
But really, unless you're doing top-secret government work, your phone is the least of your worries. If the information is valuable, it's much easier to pay an employee to leak it than to steal your phone and hope to find the data stored on the phone. And if you are doing top-secret government work, a home-brew solution isn't going to meet the federal standards you'll be required to meet.
Seems legit.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Blame the security "roles" not the app developers.
Want your app to detect if you're on a call, so it doesn't blow your eardrum out with an alert tone?
Well, then you need "Access to Phone State / Identity" ... just for an example.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...