ORLANDO, FL -- (Marketwire) -- 11/08/12 -- CSA Congress 2012 - The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) today released version 1.0 of the "Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Mobile Computing" which provides an assessment of the current state of mobile computing as well as details the prevailing top threats to mobile computing. The guidance details the various components of mobile computing, requiring business decisions on how each should be implemented throughout the enterprise.

"Mobile computing has fundamentally transformed the way we work, ushering in a new era of productivity and efficiency. But the benefits wrought by mobility ultimately come with a cost in terms of ensuring that established security protocols are consistently and correctly applied," said David Lingenfelter, CSA Mobile Working Group Co-Chair. "This guidance is the product of many months of in-depth research on behalf of the CSA Mobile Working Group and represents an important step in mitigating the inherent risks that comes with mobile computing."

More than 100 member companies along with the CSA research team jointly worked to develop the 60-page guidance report which provides a comprehensive overview of the mobile security landscape. The report is broken out into three principal sections:

1) Mobile Definition: Discusses mobile computing in terms of providing a framework for the purpose of the report.

2) Current State of Mobile Computing: Details the current state of maturity of mobile technology in corporate environments. It also addresses the threats and concerns of IT professionals in regards to mobile computing.

3) Mobile Components for Consideration: Provides an introduction to each of the major components of mobile computing, including Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Authentication, App Stores, Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Security. These subsections discuss the areas to be considered within each of these components, as well as possible ways to implement and support each component.

"Besides preserving data security and managing a myriad of personal devices, companies must also consider a new set of legal and ethical issues that may arise when employees are using their own devices for work," says Cesare Garlati, co-chair of the CSA Mobile Working Group. " Companies that don't protect themselves through policies place themselves at great financial risk."

The Mobile Working Group, co-chaired by David Lingenfelter of Fiberlink and Cesare Garlati of Trend Micro, is responsible for providing fundamental research to help secure mobile endpoint computing from a cloud centric vantage point. The CSA invites interested companies and individuals to support the group's research and initiatives. Companies and individuals interested in learning more or joining the group can visit https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/mobile/

About the Cloud Security Alliance
The Cloud Security Alliance is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and to provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing. The Cloud Security Alliance is led by a broad coalition of industry practitioners, corporations, associations and other key stakeholders. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

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