Mobile Devices: Personal Or Corporate - Providing a mechanism for security

This research was conducted to bridge the gap between the purchase and deployment of mobile devices and their security, the problem of mobile devices is the lack of laid down methods for securing them. It analyses the various security mechanism for both personal and corporate users. It classifies users based on the frequency of use for mobile devices, the breath of use and the multiplicity of tasks that the devices a put to in it's different contexts. User profiles were analyzed and different statistics on the types of users and their characteristics was established. Based on previous research it is evident that a one security policy fits all will not suffice in this situation hence the classification of users into Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and expert users. Results obtained show that no single security mechanism is enough to address the issues of mobile device security; hence a multilayered approach was utilized leveraging the various security options for on-device security, security of communication channels and securing of the entire IT infrastructure. Controls in this model was derived from existing literature and the ISOIIEC standard 2005 which governs information security practice for organizations, but was applied to mobile devices context. Adverse issues that arise as a fall-out of security implementations and security of mobile devices as a whole are discussedSchool of Computing