After unwrapping its newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, Samsung has announced the newest version of its enterprise security and management software Knox at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.
The first version of Knox was launched during the 2013 edition of MWC and released October of the same year commercially. Since then, there are about 25 million devices using the platform. The Knox 2.0 further makes enterprises using Samsung Galaxy devices and employees who bring their own devices to work, more protected from possible cyber attacks.
The upgrade to Knox hopes to improve the software's security, flexibility and usability.
"As Samsung evolved as a mobile device manufacturer, we saw increasing needs from enterprises who wanted to get the most out of mobile devices at work. They wanted a secure, highly productive mobile experience that also met the needs of their employees to separate work from personal use, even on private devices (BYOD continues to be huge). We have committed ourselves to serving the mobility needs of enterprises and their employees worldwide," wrote director for product management at Samsung, Jaideep Mirchandani.
The manufacturer of the Galaxy line of devices has enhanced the capability of the software to verify the boot process of the Knox device. Samsung compares this feature to an irreversible fuse, which essentially makes the device inaccessible if tampering of the boot code and kernel of the operating system has occured.
The Knox 2.0, which will be rolled out in the second quarter of 2014, also gives employees a very secure environment when using their Samsung devices for work. IT administrators can easily manage Knox containers, install apps that will help productivity of the employee, and encrypt all data so in case the device is compromised, everything is protected. The work environment is sealed off from the personal computing of the device owner using several policies for whitelisting, data security, email, blacklisting applications, and authentication.
The new version of the enterprise software also makes use of real-time monitoring to protect against any potential malware. Samsung also gives the software a Key Store for creating and managing any encryption key in the platform's protected environment. It also has a tool that can distinguish data traffic between personal apps and business-related apps.
Samsung also launched a Knox marketplace, a one-stop shop where businesses can purchase, discover, and try products and services, applications, and bundled offerings that can help them secure their devices, systems, and trade secrets.
Knox 2.0 will be pre-installed on the Galaxy S5. Users of the first version of Knox need to upgrade to Android KitKat to run the latest edition of the software.
