Enterprise security in the mobile age: What should Microsoft Dynamics customers be watching for?

As mobile interfaces in Microsoft Dynamics increase - for instance, Redmond's new tablet and smartphone interfaces of Dynamics CRM 2013, Business Analyzer, the Dynamics AX 2012 apps for expenses, time entry, and approvals, and even the new Dynamics SL 2011 CU1 web apps - enterprise needs to make room in their networks for employees who bring their own devices. And whether it is bring-your-own-device (BYOD) or corporate-mandated devices, mobile access to enterprise systems can create some potential vulnerabilities in a corporate security plans.

This is the first of a series of posts about discovering and addressing some of those security gaps that the growing use of mobile applications in corporate environments might accidentally open up.

For Mark McGovern, CEO of enterprise security firm Mobile System 7, the mobile story starts with the word itself.

"Mobile is not about, ‘It's got a battery, and I can walk around with it,'" he says. "For most users, mobile is something that's easy to use and provides a new efficiency. If it doesn't do those two things, it doesn't succeed."

So from McGovern's perspective, enterprise security in a mobile age involves leveraging the efficiencies that companies are best at.

"If you look historically at what enterprises are really good at, they're good at running things like servers, and they're remarkably bad at figuring out things like endpoint devices," he says. "Those bright, shiny objects move really fast. Enterprise is really good ...