Enterprise mobility and the Internet of Things have been two of the most significant trends in history, ushering in a new era of management, security and support demands among businesses. In many ways, it has become clear that the average organization is simply not prepared to handle these responsibilities efficiently, effectively and consistently, as countless breaches in the past year have been traced back to lost or stolen smartphones, tablets and personal computers that were not secured. 

It should not be all that surprising that so many have struggled to get up to speed on these matters, as the best practices of management and security have not quite yet caught up to the speed with which threats are proliferating, as well as the quickness of device and app innovation. Further compounding the issue is the fact that most companies are relying on passwords and credentials that have been relatively antiquated for several years now. 

Now, this approach to access management is not only ineffective with respect to actual protection, it is also a highly inefficient ordeal that leads to extraneous rework among employees virtually every day. Standing in juxtaposition to these methods is dynamic authentication that anchors identities to the devices themselves, leading to a more user-friendly experience along with inherently tighter control of endpoints accessing the corporate infrastructure. 

Still growing fast
International Data Corporation recently released the results of a study that forecast mobile phone shipments to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 23.8 percent this year, representing roughly 1.25 total units in sales in the past 12 months. What's more, these increases are projected to continue on for the foreseeable future, with the analysts calling for a sustained CAGR of 12.7 percent globally through 2018. 

Should this become a reality, it would mean that 1.8 billion smartphones will be shipped in 2018 alone, while developing nations were found to have the most revenue-driving power. This might seem to say that the First World has hit a plateau, but that is not at all true, as IDC pointed out that these nations are still experiencing in excess of 10 percent annual growth, which will drop down to slightly under 5 percent in the next five years. 

"The smartphone market, which has experienced runaway growth over the last several years, is starting to slow. Mature markets have slowed considerably but still deliver strong revenues with average selling prices (ASPs) over US$400. Meanwhile, many emerging markets are still barreling along, but with ASPs of less than US$250," Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team, affirmed. "The key for vendors now is to maintain a presence in the higher-margin mature markets, while establishing a sustainable presence within the fast-growing emerging markets. To enable this strategy, operating system companies are partnering with OEMs to provide low-cost handsets."

With this in mind, it should be relatively clear why businesses need to start getting serious about enterprise mobility security. 

Anchoring identities
Traditional passwords and credentials are problematic for several reasons, but maybe none more so than the risk of rogue IT, as this is such a difficult issue to overcome once it arises. The reason why antiquated controls lead to this behavior is simply because they are inefficient, leading users to take matters into their own hands and try to circumvent the security itself. 

With dynamic authentication that anchors an identity to a device, access management become a far more simplistic and reasonable activity among employees, further strengthening the resilience of systems and data to breach while boosting staff member engagement and productivity.