Jailbreaking and Rooting: EMM to Prevail Over the Menace!

While EMM is enabling agility and innovation, it is also vulnerable to numerous risks that widen the window for cyber criminals. Whether, its iOS or Android, employers are prompt enough to adopt latest EMM technologies to bring a shift in employee’s work habits and giving them the independence to seamlessly work beyond the corporate periphery.

Today, when most of the enterprises are leveraging mobility to churn out the epitome of productivity, understanding basic menaces is the sole responsibility of any organization. Two of such menaces are: Jail Breaking and Rooting.

 

What is Jail Breaking?

Jailbreaking is the methodology to alter iOS devices to execute unauthorized codes. Basically, Apple controls apps on iOS by authorizing them by its private key. This debars the attackers from running applications which are not authorized by Apple.

 

What is Rooting?

Rooting is the method of allowing users to have privileged controls for root access on your Android device. This helps the attacker to run apps forbidden by OEMs or the carriers.

 

So, What’s the Big Difference!

Generally, iOS users take jailbreaking iPhone as the same thing as Android users consider about rooting their handhelds, but there is a big difference!

Rooting allows the complete access to the device which means the user can configure the device to run any type of unauthorized code just by modifying the setting.

Jailbreak is achieved when a custom kernel is used to grant root access to your iPhone. Jail breaking simply minimizes the restrictions to run apps that Apple does not authorize. But it does not have the capacity to alter standard functionality as the user still can access iTunes and App Store under jailbroken condition.

You can’t “root” iOS or “jailbreak” Android!

Apple’s OS is not open source and you cannot alter the original source code while Android is an open source OS and enables you to do much more than just installing third party applications. With a jailbroken iPhone you can run custom apps while with a rooted device, you can completely replace and remove the entire OS of the device, you can even alter and modify settings such as processor speeds, etc. It means rooting not only bend the rules but completely break them. Big difference, right?

 

Risks of Jailbreaking

The biggest risk with jailbreaking is that it disables Sandbox feature of iOS. Sandboxing restricts the third-party apps to access OS and user data like professional and personal contacts, location data and media items.

For a non-jailbroken phone, the iOS acts as a “police” blocking all types unauthorized actions.

 

Risk of Rooting

Rooting entails breaking of crucial security restrictions in Android OS. Which means Trojans, spyware, and viruses can easily infect applications and take over your phone and execute fatal actions like collecting private data such as credit card details, credentials you use for banking, shopping or socializing, forward your address book to cybercrooks, check your email, etc.

Thus, we see the risks are relentless and magnifies when it comes to enterprise mobility, especially, when classified corporate data is at stake.

Rooted/Jailbroken phones tremendously effect corporate data and can put vital enterprise information to high risk.

 

Rooting & Jailbreaking: Menace That Takes a Toll on Enterprise Mobility!

Rooted or Jailbroken phones not only put employees’ personal information at risk but also pose a great menace to valuable enterprise data as well. Attackers seamlessly breach network barriers and access data from handhelds as multiple devices have VPN connectivity, hence, puts the entire business in great danger.

 

EMM: Need of the hour!

An effective EMM solution plays a leading role in safeguarding your business from numerous threats like Jailbreaking and Rooting. Let us have a quick tour on how an EMM helps to protect your organization from these threats.

Jailbreak and Root detection method

Today, most of EMM solutions are equipped with Jailbreak and Root detection technology which has the capacity to detect the existence of static root indicators in form of certain files in system directory that expedite root access.

Remote installation and pushing jobs are the primary activities for an EMM admin. The detection feature enables the EMM solution to detect if any device is rooted in your enterprise and hence, revokes the installation of any relevant app. Generally, EMM solutions detect such issues by checking the superuser.apk file and sends an instant Email notification to the Admin about the issue.

 

SureMDM: At Your Rescue!

Advance EMM solutions like SureMDM not only detects and alerts about the threats but loads the exploited devices with preconfigured settings called as Compliance Jobs which protects the devices from further vulnerabilities with features like Lock the Device, Wipe Device, Send Alerts, etc.

However, attacking intentions can bypass such checks via multiple ways, so it’s quite imperative to keep the workforce enlightened about how a rooted or jailbroken device can not only compromise enterprise data but can also victimize their personal information as well.

At times, situations may demand deliberate rooting of any device to utilize advance EMM features, however, its conditional and depends on specific requirement. But it must also comply with security needs as well.

Detection mechanism in EMM plays a remarkable role as an additional layer of defense for enterprise mobility. Moreover, these tactics are just a minute aspect of any comprehensive EMM strategy, there’s much more a EMM solution can do to protect your business from latest mobility threats.