- Step #1: Investigate Whitelist and Blacklist Software for Both SMS and E-Mail Messages for Your Mobile Users (or Develop Your Own)
- Step #2: Stay Up-to-Date On the Growing Problem of Wireless Spam with Virus Payloads, and Prepare Patches and Other Defenses
- Step #3: Find Better Ways to Filter the Messages that Get Routed to Mobile Devices
- Step #4: Make Sure that Your Carrier Knows You're Concerned About Mobile Spam
- Step #5: Institute an Enterprise Policy that Protects Against Wireless Spam
- Step #6: Get Serious About the Problem
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Step #5: Institute an Enterprise Policy that Protects Against Wireless Spam
As mobile devices become more data-capable, it makes more and more sense to move them under the broader umbrella of the enterprise's IT administration and security policies.
- "If you're allowing your staff to access corporate data through a mobile device, then you should apply the same policies you do PCs," Ekram says. "You should treat all endpoints as a security risk."
Mobile-specific policy add-ons could include instituting a hard-and-fast schedule of lockdowns/patches on the operating systems for the smart device operating systems, loading smart devices with one of the emerging SMS/e-mail spam filters (see above), and setting limits on which devices end users can use during working hours.
Yes, getting users to use an approved device at all times might be nearly impossible—at least when it comes to simply placing phone calls. But you can and should limit corporate network access to devices and operating systems that you're confident you can manage. In other words, if you're a hard-core Windows shop, it probably makes sense to offer key data access only to locked-down Windows mobile-based devices.