Federal agencies are getting more comfortable as they transition to a mobile landscape. As this transition progresses discussions have become more focused on securing actual data rather than securing devices as the concept of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) fits into the architecture.
Rick Holgate, CIO at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms spoke about this recent trend. “BYOD is the epitome of securing the data and not the device. It’s inherently a model which in which I’m not worrying about what’s going on with the device because it’s someone else’s device and I’m not going to take control of the whole device but I am going to try to deliver enterprise data securely on that platform.”
One of the challenges that ATF is now facing is looking at different mobility and BYOD pilots and try to create as close to a holistic approach as possible. DHS’ cyber security staff has been tasked with working on multiple reference architectures and will soon be releasing a mobile security reference architecture that will address questions on how to secure data in a BYOD architecture among other things.
The transition to the mobile world has seen rapid development and change in a short period of time. The fact that agencies have gone from focusing on the device to the data is a clear indicator that mobile technologies are becoming more entrenched in how the beltway is conducting business.