BlackBerry 7.0 named safest mobile OS for enterprises

BlackBerry's latest operating system is the foremost compatible for enterprise use.

According to a survey by Trend Micro which compares the power of several mobile platforms to fulfill the demands of use within the enterprise, BlackBerry 7.0 scored higher than Apple iOS5, Windows Phone 7.5 and Google's Android 2.3.

The platforms were each scored on a mixture of things including built-in security, application security, authentication, device wipe, device firewall and virtualisation; BlackBerry gained the best average score (2.89), followed by iOS (1.7), Windows Phone (1.61) and Android (1.37).

Researchers from Altimeter Group, Bloor Research and Trend Micro said the company-grade security and manageability of BlackBerry made it most appropriate for the foremost stringent mobile roles.

It rated higher than Apple iOS because of the administrator's complete control over the device during the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), but features must be managed for there to be a benefit to the business, researchers said.

The report also praised the sandboxing of the iOS application architecture and there being no options for adding removable storage.

It also praised the "reasonably robust and secure" smartphone operating system in Windows Phone, with the OS using privileges and isolation techniques to create sandbox processes in line with a policy system that defines which features the processes operating in a chamber can access.

Finally, it said that while more up-to-date versions of Android come in, version 2.x continues to be the foremost widely deployed on existing and new handsets, making a security risk in itself. Apps also run in a sandboxed environment and so they cannot access the network without prior consent.

Raimund Genes, CTO of Trend Micro, said: “Against the growing, unstoppable backdrop of consumerisation and BYOD, every mobile device is a risk to business. What's interesting in these results is that, whilst some mobile platforms have evolved very noticeably along enterprise lines, there may be still a robust ‘consumer marketing' legacy in some quarters and here is negating the various progress made at the enterprise front. Indeed, a number of the attributes we now have examined within the report are still firmly ‘enterprise-unready'.”

Nigel Stanley, practice leader â€" security at Bloor Research, said: “Security people I work with are scared witless by consumerisation and the rapid adoption of those devices. Other than the technical challenges, organisations have to understand the significance of a tight mobile device security policy and supporting user education.”