The ultimate guide to Knox security for small businesses – Samsung Business Insights

An ambitious entrepreneur can start a successful business with little more than a solid idea, a strategic plan, and a smartphone to stay on top of everything while executing it. Soon, however, life in a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) begins to look very different.

First, additional team members are hired, all of whom need their own smartphones to stay connected and collaborate. Tablets can then be used to take advantage of a larger display and conduct customer demonstrations.

Investing in additional mobile devices is a natural result of business growth – it’s a sign that an SMB is on the right track to delivering great employee and customer experiences based on digital processes. However, as these devices become more integral to your business, you need to think about how you will secure and manage them.

Samsung already offers built-in data protection for mobile devices with Knox security for small businesses, but it also provides everything SMBs need to keep them up-to-date and running smoothly with tools like Knox Manage and Knox E-FOTA.

The sooner SMBs adopt these SMB security solutions, the better they can focus on growing their business. Usually the biggest question I ask is: Do we really need these tools?

Checklist: Signs an SMB should invest in secure mobile device management

If you’re not sure how far along you are in this journey, these are some of the more common tipping points:

Small business security threats are starting to emerge

Ask yourself: How prepared would your business be to face any or all of the following?

• An employee receives an email from a suspicious source demanding payment of an attached invoice. This could be a phishing scheme, where opening the attachment unleashes malware that allows cybercriminals to steal data or shut down your network.
• A team member connects to a public Wi-Fi hotspot while on the road. Only later would it become clear that it opened the door to third-party attacks on corporate devices and data.
• An employee loses their device while wearing it all day. There’s no easy way to determine whether all apps and their content are accessible to anyone who finds them.

Policy enforcement threatens to become a full-time job

Even if you develop policies to avoid or mitigate the most common cyber threats, it can become almost impossible to ensure that they are followed by everyone on your team. Without any visibility into where devices are and how they are being used, you can waste a lot of hours in manual work.

How often would you say you face similar problems like these?

• When a new employee joins the team, they expect to have their mobile device fully configured because you (or someone else) must provide them with the appropriate configurations and policies.
• There are opportunities to provide an enhanced customer experience by giving them mobile devices, but you can’t risk them being used for unwanted purposes or accessing sensitive business applications.
• It’s time to upgrade your entire business to the latest mobile device, but bulk profiling is out of the question.

The demand for apps (and keeping them updated) is starting to get overwhelming

Employees naturally want to use whatever is out there to stay productive and efficient at work, and most SMBs encourage them to download apps that make sense. Then things can get complicated.

Does any of this sound familiar?

• Work stops when mobile devices have problems because employees have to go back to the office for help.
• When an employee’s device goes missing, there’s no way to track its location.
• Employees run devices with different operating systems, which causes compatibility issues with critical applications.
• When operating systems are updated, there can be unexpected surprises because devices cannot be tested first.
• Scheduling any kind of device update is a nightmare and seen as a huge disruption by the team.

How Samsung Knox solutions can empower SMBs

Large enterprises may have dedicated IT departments that can handle many of these challenges, but SMBs need tools to manage and protect mobile devices with the same level of ease and agility.

Samsung Knox directly addresses this need with a hardware-backed security approach and simplified management that provides continuous protection.

Here are some examples of Knox SMB security solutions that allow them to grow without hindering their mobile headaches:

Knox Mobile registration

When it’s time to set up small batches of mobile devices and get them onsite in the hands of employees, Knox Mobile Enrollment (KME) provides the fast and easy out-of-the-box experience everyone wants. Setup is simple: KME automatically fills in user credentials on each device.

You can also register devices to work with KME in any network scenario or fleet size – either using local network resources or in a hybrid cloud and on-premises environment.

The latest version of KME also makes it easy to quickly clone a standard profile into an advanced profile, and bulk profile assignments can be made without user passwords.

Knox Manage

Whether you have people working in an office, in the field, or both, everyone wants to achieve more. Knox Manage helps you and your team get the most out of the mobile devices you’ve deployed, while driving greater productivity and operational efficiency.

SMBs may not have a large fleet, but even when you hit the 10 device threshold, Knox Manage provides a way to harmonize all your policies. There might be some employees, for example, whose role requires the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G. The latest version of Knox Manage allows you to selectively apply 5G network access either to the entire device or to specific work apps that you’ve configured in a permission list.

When employees experience difficulties with their devices in the field, Knox Manage includes a remote access tool for manual troubleshooting. This saves invaluable time for both administrators and those in the field. It’s a simple, intuitive user experience that lets you take critical actions no matter where your employees are.

The next time someone loses their device, Knox Manage’s lost mode can make the device ring for 5 minutes, at which point it will report its location. You can even lock your device and display a message on the screen when it’s lost or stolen.

SMBs tend to see employees come and go, but there could still be a lot more return on investment (ROI) to get out of their mobile devices. Here you can use Knox Manage to instantly perform a factory reset and reuse it for another employee.

Employees aren’t the only ones you give devices to. Imagine setting up a tablet to let customers sign in when they visit or browse inventory in a store. Knox Manage includes a Kiosk mode where devices are set to run a single application or a limited set of applications. This brings additional security peace of mind for small businesses, while making it easier to offer kiosk-style experiences to customers.

Finally, it’s important to note that Knox Manage not only works well with Samsung devices, but also works on other platforms, meaning you can use it to manage iOS devices and more.

Knox E-PHOTO

Traditionally, firmware updates had to be done manually. Today, SMBs can take advantage of firmware over-the-air (FOTA) solutions like Knox E-FOTA, which allow updates to happen without interrupting anyone’s workflow.

Instead of asking employees to get involved in updating their devices, for example, Knox E-FOTA not only lets you choose the operating system you want, but ensures it can work with all apps and device models. You can also test beta updates on sample devices first to avoid any unwanted surprises and prevent unwanted automatic OS version upgrades on devices.

If employees are busy meeting a critical deadline, this is no problem – E-FOTA also allows you to postpone updates and allows for flexible scheduling. You can set updates for a specific date and time or based on other factors such as connectivity, battery level, and charging status.

The bottom line is that you can manage OS and application updates without integration issues, compatibility issues, or most importantly, disrupting the work your team needs to do.

Why Samsung Knox?

You may not have extensive backups of your data, and you may not be able to afford consultants at your disposal. That’s why you need a partner who can not only provide the right tools, but also deep experience and understanding of an SME’s unique business needs.

Without this type of partner, a serious data breach or IT error could lead to employee frustration, damaged customer relationships and lost revenue.

Samsung demonstrates this kind of partnership with its approach to Knox. For example, Galaxy hardware is built securely – from design to manufacturing to the moment SMBs put it in the hands of their employees. Samsung is also open to innovation, evolving security solutions for small businesses in a spirit of openness and partnership. This starts with building on Android’s proven multi-layered security and adding best-in-class technologies to address the ever-changing threat landscape.

Cloud-based solutions like Knox Manage, KME and Knox E-FOTA extend the value of Knox security and put SMBs in control of their devices and data, enabling their teams to work securely and productively.

It’s easier than ever to get started with Knox solutions, even for SMBs with no mobile device management knowledge or experience. Samsung’s QuickStart service for Knox Manage is one example – get expert support for everything from the setup process to setting up devices and more.

Learn how to protect your enterprise with an incident response plan by downloading this free white paperand see how Samsung’s Knox suite keeps your business secure from the moment a Galaxy device starts up.