NIST requests feedback on mobile cybersecurity guide
Government scientists are asking for feedback on a new guide they’ve developed to help companies establish a secure framework for their employees’ mobile devices — increasingly a key component of business models around the country.
The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Wednesday issued “Mobile Device Security: Cloud & Hybrid Builds.”
For the guide, NIST mapped out a number of potential vulnerabilities, including email and calendar apps, and compiled commercially available cybersecurity software to counter them. The guide includes instructions on how to install software and remove sensitive information when an employee leaves an organization.
The guide recommends a slew of commercially available technologies that NIST says can effectively secure data stored by employees’ mobile devices.
“Mobile devices extend or eliminate the notion of traditional organization boundaries, posing challenges that [face] nearly all businesses regardless of sector or organization size,” said Nate Lesser, deputy director of the NCCoE, in a release.
The report comes partially in response to NIST criticism that cybersecurity efforts at many organizations “have not kept pace with risks that mobile devices can pose.”
Part of NIST’s primary cybersecurity special publication series — its “Cybersecurity Practice Guides” — the mobile device roadmap is the latest step in a broad movement towards countering complex cybersecurity issues across public and private sectors.
“Our guidance can help organizations reduce their risk and increase their ability to see and respond to security issues,” said Lesser.
