What is Mobile Email Management
Email is the primary method of official communication within an organization, and in order for mobile workers to stay connected and productive, accessing their corporate email on a mobile device is essential. With mobile email management, IT administrators can facilitate secure access to corporate email on employees' smartphones, tablets, and laptops, protecting business-critical files from potential security threats.
Why Manage Enterprise Mobile Mailboxes
The widespread use of mobile devices in the workplace makes it imperative that corporate email be accessed on these devices, but mobile access can pose a security threat to corporate data. Employees may use untrusted devices, unapproved applications, or unsecured Wi-Fi connections to access their mailboxes, or they may inadvertently share sensitive corporate email attachments, exposing corporate data to unauthorized Authorized third parties. Add to this the fact that email itself may contain malware or other hidden threats that compromise the confidentiality of corporate data on the device, and to address these security risks, enterprise mobile email needs to be managed by the IT team.
Difficulties facing enterprise mobile email management
Due to the variety of device types and platforms used in organizations, it can be difficult to only allow trusted mobile devices to access corporate email. To protect corporate data in transit from security risks, IT administrators must ensure Use secure communication protocols when accessing email. Automated backups to third-party cloud servers and viewing of corporate email and attachments with unapproved applications give unauthorized application providers and cloud services access to sensitive corporate data.
Ensuring security is further complicated in BYOD environments because employees who leave the organization can still download corporate email attachments to their personal devices. Additionally, if a device is lost or stolen, corporate data on it is at risk of falling into the wrong hands. These difficulties can be overcome by using mobile email management tools to manage and secure enterprise mobile email.
Key Features of Mobile Email Manager
Mobile email management tools and services simplify business email management by:
- Allows administrators to provision corporate email on devices remotely and in bulk.
- Ensure that only trusted devices and approved apps are used to access corporate mailboxes.
- Limit sharing of email data with unauthorized devices, users, and applications.
- Enforce security protocols when users access their mailboxes.
- Virtually containerize corporate workspaces and email on BYOD.
How to Leverage MDM Tools for Mobile Email Management
A comprehensive mobile device management solution ( Mobile Device Manager Plus ) allows IT administrators to manage mobile email by:
- Configure corporate email accounts for employees
- Configure Email Restrictions
- Ensure secure communication
- Protect email attachments
- Secure access to Exchange
- Pre-configure app settings and permissions
Configure corporate email accounts for employees
IT administrators need to ensure that every employee has a corporate email account for internal communication, as well as external interactions with customers, suppliers, and collaborators. With MDM, creating separate email accounts for each employee can be tedious by aligning email policies with employees' devices (Android, iOS, Windows); Simplify this task. Additionally, MDM allows configuring email signatures and setting default email accounts for users.
Configure Email Restrictions
Many senders use HTML to add graphics and links to email. These HTML emails pose a potential threat to the device in the form of hidden viruses and other malware that may be downloaded automatically. Using MDM, this threat can be eliminated by completely restricting the use of HTML formatting in email to plain text only. Automatic email forwarding is another important security issue that administrators need to deal with. If an employee enables email forwarding to an external address and leaves the company, sensitive data belonging to the organization may be lost. The situation becomes aggravated when critical information is leaked to unauthorized third parties via email, a viable way to prevent these situations is to restrict the forwarding of emails using MDM, MDM also allows the management of email addresses with third-party cloud services synchronization of , use of email accounts in non-email apps, email notifications, etc.
Ensure secure communication
Email communications primarily use email profile standards such as POP or IMAP to retrieve email, which often involves transmitting email content in plain text, potentially leaving confidential data vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks and other cyberattacks. The solution is to use an SSL/TLS connection to ensure that email traffic is encrypted and secure in transit. In addition to providing an additional layer of encryption via S/MIME (which preserves message integrity and enhances data privacy), MDM also allows administrators to establish a secure communication channel for email by enabling SSL/TLS connections or using SSL certificates (Android, iOS, Windows).
Protect email attachments
Email attachments often include important documents containing sensitive data, and once downloaded, they can be opened with any unmanaged application, shared to another device, or even backed up to third-party cloud services, leading to data breaches. With MDM, email attachments are not only protected in transit, but also after they are downloaded.
Secure access to Exchange
Many organizations use Exchange Server to manage business email, and this is one of the main reasons Exchange is at constant risk of security threats. Despite administrators' best efforts to restrict access to Exchange using firewall configurations and other security tools, many organizations are unaware that they can use Conditional Access to control Exchange Server access at the device level. To better protect an organization's Exchange environment, MDM allows Restrict unmanaged device access to the Exchange server.
Pre-configure app settings and permissions
Email is the primary form of communication for businesses, but configuring email accounts can be difficult and time-consuming. MDM's managed app provisioning (Android, iOS, Windows) greatly simplifies the process. Administrators can customize the functionality of any hosted email app to meet organizational requirements, distribute the app to devices, and preconfigure parameters such as account type, domain name, and email signature to make the app available to the business immediately after installation.
Manage and protect sensitive business email data
- Over-the-air configuration of email accounts : Extend email configuration by dynamically loading variables such as username from directory services.
- Protect email data : Enforce data loss prevention (DLP) policies, such as restrictions on copy and paste, screenshots, shared attachments, and adding personal accounts.
- Exchange Enabled : Allows users to access corporate data such as email, contacts, calendars, and tasks stored on Exchange servers, even when they are offline.
- Enforce conditional access : Audit access to Exchange and Microsoft 365 mail servers, and restrict access from unmanaged devices.
- Safe Email Attachments : Open attachments with the built-in email attachment viewer and allow only approved apps to open them.
- Enable default signatures : Design and manage standard custom signatures across your organization, or customize email signatures for different departments.
- Actively manage contacts on device : Allows users to access vCards with contact information, save them to their device, and periodically sync them with CardDAV Sync.
- Synchronized Calendars and Scheduled Events : Allows access to subscribed calendars with CalDAV synchronization to ensure employees never miss any scheduled events.
- Revoke Account Access : Remotely remove email configurations from lost, stolen, jailbroken, rooted and deactivated devices.
Develop an Email Threat Prevention and Response Framework
- Customize email client apps across your organization
- Secure Email Communication
- Implement device-based access control
- Enable passwordless authentication
- Configure email functionality
- Sandbox emails and attachments
Customize email client apps across your organization
Remotely pre-define permissions and customize features by pre-configuring parameters such as account type, domain name, and preferred authentication method for various email clients, including Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, Samsung Email, and Zoho Mail. Also ensure that device access policies and data sharing restrictions are enforced from the outset
Secure Email Communication
Secure exchange of messages between email clients and servers over SSL/TLS channels, while encrypting messages at rest and in transit using end-to-end encryption standards such as S/MIME. Add a digital signature to verify the authenticity of the sender and verify the integrity of the message.
Implement device-based access control
Automatically grant business apps and mailboxes access to managed devices while preventing unmanaged devices from accessing Exchange, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Zoho Workplace. Provide access grace periods during which users can easily enroll their devices, specifying target users for conditional access policies, such as all field employees or contract employees.
Enable passwordless authentication
Provide a secure and seamless login experience with single sign-on. Eliminate password fatigue by allowing users to log on only once to access all required web services and applications, including email client applications. Also, depending on your organization's requirements, leverage certificate-based authentication to ensure users don't even need to log in once, effectively using a zero-logon approach.
Configure email functionality
Remove human error from the email security equation with advanced security restrictions such as blocking unapproved email applications, preventing export to other email accounts, and restricting email forwarding. Prevents the use of HTML formatting, which can pose a threat to the device by hiding viruses and other malware.
Sandbox emails and attachments
Containerize workspaces and limit corporate email access to only hosted apps on personal devices. Securely view and organize email attachments with the built-in document viewer. Disable data synchronization with cloud services and non-work apps to prevent email content from being inadvertently stored on untrusted third-party servers.
Mobile Device Manager Plus for mobile email management allows IT administrators to remotely provision and secure corporate email on devices across various platforms, all from a single console. By implementing secure communication protocols, applying DLP policies, and distributing trusted applications to view email attachments, eliminating the need for third-party applications, the potential for data breaches can be minimized. By limiting the use of HTML, you can protect device data from viruses or malware hidden in emails. Using this MDM tool, IT administrators can even ensure that only compliant trusted devices are allowed to access corporate resources such as Exchange servers.