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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?"
And blackberry messenger is too.
To clarify on the blackberry messenger encryption: It's encrypted by default with a global key (hardly useful) but pin to pin communications can be encrypted using an organizational key, if you subscribe to a S/MIME package.
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...
Why android? is there an app you need or something? or is it a latest bling thing?
Because Blackberry does the encrypted thing, and if you buy BES you can also set device policies and centrally administer the devices (remote wipe for example).
Timothy, You should take a look at Good for Enterprise www.good.com Best, jmarka
You basically described the RIM/Blackberry use case; why not use them? The Bold 9900 is actually a nice phone.
K Man
... Blackberry. Aside from encrypting phone calls themselves, everything you're asking to do is something even a basic Curve will do out of the box - encrypting the phone storage and SD card, requiring a password to install apps. And that's without using any enterprise tools to manage the devices and security policies across the board, remotely.
Pretty much sounds like you need a blackberry. Only they offer what you describe.
Trouble is, blackberry phones are crap, BES is crap, the blackberry network is crap, and the blackberry company (RIM) is circling the drain.
Turns out the infrastructure you need for your idea of a "secure" phone is more trouble than it's worth. Most companies have come to the realization that security is in fact a social and policy issue and much less a technological one. Just get good quality bog standard smart phones and create a policy that minimizes risk.
That said, iphones are officially supported activesync devices and will respect activesync security policies set by an exchange server. You can remote wipe them. (Funny thing - Winphone7's activesync support is provisional and not recommended for an enterprise environment - Microsoft's words!)
there's nothing you can do to a phone that a savvy user can't also do (or undo).
And if you are a phone manufacturer, (A) it's easy to more-or-less do what you're saying, and (B) there will still be people to can find work-arounds to break out of the lockdown.
The only reason I mention this is that Android has an energetic modding community, in spite of platform security built into some of these. (Locked bootloaders, S-ON partitions, etc.)
Just using your "for example" as an example... if you can put flash Cyanogenmod onto the phone, your users can flash a completely different ROM and defeat a lot of the things you want to do. The tools you would use are available to anyone, and if you try to deny your users root (for instance), there are plenty of root exploits available to break that jail.
In general, I think smartphones are too much general-purpose computers to really secure in the static way you're thinking about.
As to the (perhaps more weighty) matters like all-storage encryption, I have never seen a good answer. Anything you could install as an app would probably be too shallow (i.e., not effective before booting). In fact, I don't know if the standard Android Linux kernels are amenable to that; you'd need a custom bootloader or 2nd stage, and I haven't seen those specifically tailored for storage decryption.
I dunno. Sounds like you have a challenge ahead of you.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
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.
Just a question, but why Android?
If you indeed NEED the security (I do for work, which is why I have a BlackBerry) why not just go the tried and true route of BlackBerry? Security is built in, everything except SMS (to my knowledge) can be encrypted, and you don't have to worry about updates from a 3rd party firmware (CM) breaking your apps or security model.
Other things I LOVE about my BlackBerry...
This is a sincere question. I carry two devices (BB 9900 for work, and a CM9 rom'd SGS2 for my personal phone) and I personally cannot stand the exchange email client on Android, it just seems slow and clunky, and CM9 helped a little bit, but not much. Use the right tool for the job, instead of trying to shoehorn a tool into the job you want it to do.
I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off...
You spec could honestly be stronger.
What threats do you want to secure against? What scenarios do you want to avoid? Do you want to ensure against virus protection? Lost devices? (e.g. oh noes! our client list is on wikileaks!) Locking down data?
For bonus points, what are the top three things your "reps" need to do?
Just make calls? Or do texting? Or access web mail? Or...?
And how many "reps" are there today? How many will there be next year?
And what is your logistics model? Everybody at the same physical workplace? Distributed "virtual" office? Different countries? Different languages?
Does your phone need to integrate with any of your workflow software?
Try writing up five or six hundred words on the above to enhance your question - I'm sure you'll get some useful advice if you do that.
I'm surprised I'm the only one suggesting this: Android Management
Phone calls are already encrypted. Text messages stored on the phone will be encrypted if the phone's system storage is also encrypted. Data traffic can be encrypted by forcing the use of VPN back to the company's local network (and as such, web filtering, etc. also applied).
There is a... um, little known company, don't know if you ever heard of it, called Research in Motion, that has been making security on their smartphones their main priority SINCE 1999.
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...
I'm not worried about RIM going under. They've been supposedly dying for years, but they just now posted their first quarterly loss. (Even with non-competitive handsets, they were still profitable. The 9900 is amazing, but you get my meaning.) Their customer base is growing and they've got plenty of cash on hand. They've got a fantastic suite of new development tools, best-in-class new remote management software, business friendly features like Balance, and a new operating system that is, by any metric, a cut above the rest Their app library is also growing like crazy and they're doing a fantastic job of recruiting new developers with a fantastic and varied suite of development tools. The handsets out this fall running their new OS look to be exceptionally high-end, with a brilliant UI.
RIM is hardly dying. They're a popular whipping-boy, but there are other companies doing far worse than RIM that don't get the same media bashing. When is the last time you heard that Sony is dying? They're worse off than RIM, and don't appear to have a strategy moving forward.
RIM is in no danger of "going under any day". That's been the line everyone's been chanting for the past year or so, sure, but that whole time their customer base was growing at an alarming rate and they were posting profits every quarter.
Required reading for internet skeptics
The combination of Blackberry and BES is the correct choice if you want a secure enterprise solution. With a BES server you have complete control over the phones. Policies allow logging of everything that the phone does, including if you want all incoming and outgoing text messages, push and pull apps and calling restrictions.
The difference between consumer and enterprise blackberry is that the BES server has a secure key that you create and is unknown to blackberry, bis is controlled by blackberry and is snoopable by governments.
I've found that the battery life is better on a blackberry, but the browser isnt the greatest, but has improved in the newest models. Another thing to keep in mind is the battery is field swappable, so if the battery wears out, YOU can switch it out, or carry a spare.
Blackberry made the mistake of getting into consumer phones, but for enterprise situations, blackberry is the best way to go.
"Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails." - Steve Jobs
I'm sure it's legit. And secure. Legitimately & securely transmits your info to China....
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
To clarify on the blackberry messenger encryption: It's encrypted by default with a global key (hardly useful) but pin to pin communications can be encrypted using an organizational key, if you subscribe to a S/MIME package.
Not quite. Blackberry messenger by default does use a global key (and the key is known by many in the security community), but blackberry messenger is also encrypted with 3DES, which is a bit weak. With a million dollars of computers, 3DES can be brute-forced reasonably quickly.
By comparison, blackberry email is encrypted with AES.
If your company has a blackberry enterprise server, you can set your own key for blackberry messenger, you don't need the S/MIME package (fyi, S/MIME is free).
You are correct that pin to pin communications can be encrypted using S/MIME.
You can also get a PGP module for blackberry, but you have to pay for that.
Your use case and focus on security really suggests that BlackBerry would be the best bet, but if you are focused on finding a way to securely deploy Android devices, but still maintain some security, take a look at the BlackBerry Universal Device Service product as an MDM solution:
Feature Checklist: http://ca.blackberry.com/content/dam/blackBerry/pdf/brochure/northAmerica/english/BlackBerryMobileFusion,UniversalDeviceServiceFeatureChecklist-1.pdf
Details: http://us.blackberry.com/business/software/mobilefusion/
Docs: http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/subcategories/?userType=2&category=Universal+Device+Service
BlackBerry Mobile Fusion Client for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rim.mobilefusion.client&hl=en
You can deploy policies to enforce media card encryption, not sure about the call/SMS logs or encrypting the rest of the file system. That's probably something that would have to be baked into the OS - if you have to do it via a mod or rooting the device, you potentially open yourself up to more vulnerabilities.
The UDS product can detect if a device is jailbroken or rooted, and you can set rules to lock out access to internal resources. You can also do remote device lock/wipe, so that gets you halfway there.
Virtually all the malware (and there is some drive by stuff happening) attacks people with rooted phones, so installing even a secure "ROM" is probably the worst thing you can do for security. By looking for software that has gone through the common criteria (assuming that still exists or another similar certification process) you will have some reassurances that it was designed in a secure manner. I would also look for something using other government standards, like FIPS 140-2.
You should check out GOOD for mobile devices. It will create an encrypted sandbox for any corporate data/applications and works on a variety of phones. It also comes with some decent enterprise tools. The drawback is it requires changes to some 'user' plans and that creates headaches if you allow personal devices on corporate networks.
Without full disclosure on the OS, the source, and hardware you can't guarantee its secure.
I am guessing here, but it seems to me cell phones are designed from the ground up to be insecure.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."