Assigning and Enforcing Security Policies on Handheld Devices

The proliferation of mobile handheld devices, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and tablet computers, within the workplace is expanding rapidly. While providing productivity benefits, the ability of these devices to store and transmit corporate information through both wired and wireless networks poses potential risks to an organization’s security. This paper describes an approach to assigning and enforcing an organization’s security policy on handheld devices. The approach relies on the device holding a valid policy certificate, obtained through synchronization with a user’s desktop computer, organizational server, or other means, before conducting any security-sensitive operations. The paper describes a proof-of-concept implementation of the policy certificate issuing tool, policy specification language, certificate representation, and enforcement mechanisms that were used to demonstrate this approach, and discusses the associated benefits and drawbacks.