Bolstering a Phone’s Defenses Against Breaches

The so-called bring your own device, or BYOD, trend can lead to trouble. Almost half of companies that allow personally owned devices to connect to the corporate network have experienced a data breach, either because of unwitting mistakes by employees or intentional wrongdoing, according to a 2012 survey of 400 technology professionals by researchers at Decisive Analytics.

With that risk in mind, Lookout is taking aim at companies and government agencies in much the same way attackers are: it is using its app to slip under the door of enterprises via the hundreds of millions of employees who regularly bring their personal devices to work. Lookout is among a handful of tech companies trying to capitalize on the BYOD phenomenon that people in charge of securing corporate networks say has become their biggest headache. In the past, they could mandate that employees use company-approved BlackBerry smartphones, which came with a tightly controlled network. But with BlackBerry’s future uncertain and consumers clamoring to use their iPhones, iPads and Android-powered devices at work, tech managers have had to consider alternatives and deal with the potential security threats that come with those alternatives.