Taking Endpoint Management to a Higher Level

With the rise of mobile computing just about every task associated with security management is getting more complicated. Where there was once a limited number of devices to worry about there are now an array of options that are all finding their way into the enterprise. The challenge facing IT organizations is finding better ways to manage new classes of devices that with each new addition can consume increasingly large amounts of sensitive corporate data.

At the IBM Pulse 2012 conference this week, IBM offered a glimpse into the future of how these devices will be managed. The company announced the release of an update to IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices that now adds support for an array of smartphones and tablet devices running Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia Symbian operating systems.

But more importantly, IBM also announced a relationship with Toshiba under which IBM EndPoint Manager software will be embedded in the BIOS of a new class of laptop computing devices that Toshiba plans to unveil later this year.

According to Scott Hebner, vice president of marketing for IBM Tivoli, the IBM EndPoint Manager software will not only be able to make it easier to deploy patch updates, track stolen laptops and wipe sensitive data off of those machines, it will also be used to proactively manage the amount of energy being consumed by each of those devices.

But the definition of an endpoint isn’t limited to a computing device. Hebner says IBM will be extending Endpoint Management software to all kinds of embedded systems that need to be made more secure. As cyber criminals increasingly turn their focus on industrial systems, it’s becoming clear that anything that is connected to a network is by definition now an endpoint.

On a certain level the increasing complexity of endpoint security should be giving organizations more cause for pause. The good news is that there is a lot of innovation taking place when it comes to endpoint security. We just have to hope it all arrives before something happens that make us regret the fact that more things are now interconnected than ever.