How to Secure Your Android Rugged Devices

by Sonali Datta on October 31, 2019

The growing significance of Android rugged devices in multiple industrial sectors like manufacturing, retail, logistics, oil and gas, energy, mining, shipping, transportation, construction, healthcare, hospitality and military, also suggests the increasing need to secure them. As the name suggests, Android rugged devices come in shockproof thicker-than-usual casings, spill-resistant keyboard and other specific features to ensure improved protection and endurance against shocks, heat, moisture, dust, water and even sand-storms or blizzards.

Being used in harsh and trying working situations and extreme climatic conditions, rugged devices seem to be the only dependable handheld sources that ensure employee productivity, operational efficiency, task precision, collaboration, communication and information-sharing. While rugged devices ensure employee productivity, precision and business profitability, it is extremely important to ensure that they are securely used to protect the data stored within them. This blog will tell you how to effectively secure your rugged devices while leveraging them to the fullest.

Also Read: This is why you need a rugged device management solution

Secure Android rugged devices using an MDM solution

With the rising security concerns owing to the ever-expanding mobile threat landscape, companies’ IT team must make sure that their Android rugged devices and the corporate data they hold are totally secured from falling in the wrong hands. As a matter of fact, securing company rugged devices has become even more important than it was before. Security for your Android rugged devices can be achieved in two ways – generally, you can take measures like:

Have a strong password policy
Avoid auto-login of passwords
Set multiple user profiles
Install security software
Beware of downloading personal apps
Install APKs from trusted sources

But apart from these basic security steps, implementation of an MDM solution to holistically secure your Android rugged devices has become a mandate for several modern IT-based companies.

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Looking to secure your Android rugged devices? Stop at Scalefusion.

Enforce security policies remotely: Scalefusion MDM adds an extra layer of security on top of your existing process. It allows the IT admin to remotely enforce security policies, WiFi policies, device usage and data access regulations remotely from the MDM dashboard to ensure that nobody tampers with or misuses the corporate network and the data lying within the devices. It also allows remote OS and app updates for security purposes.
Securely distribute apps and content: Scalefusion MDM enables the IT admin to securely publish, update and distribute enterprise apps and content on the managed Android rugged devices to ensure that relevant information and data is always accessible to the employees without compromising the corporate security. The IT admin can remotely restrict the download of any personal apps or browsing of internet on the managed rugged devices for extra security
Remote data wipe and device lock: Using Scalefusion MDM dashboard, the IT admin can remotely wipe data from the rugged devices or even lock the devices to ensure that the data doesn’t fall in the wrong hands when the device lies unattended or is lost or stolen. Remote data wipe and device lock have proved to be a useful security feature for many of our customers who have found this capability pretty useful to protect data from unforeseen conditions.

Read this: Check how rugged devices are disrupting the manufacturing industry

Security violation notifications: Scalefusion MDM comes powered with Eva communication suite that offers context-aware notifications, nudges and alerts in case of security and compliance violations, device usage and health issues, geo-fence breaches and other situations of policy abuses. These real-time notifications empower the IT admin to take immediate action in times of emergency to secure your Android rugged devices.
Apply kiosk mode: IT admin can further tighten data and device security by restricting usage of internet-browsing and downloading of non-enterprise apps. IT admin can whitelist work-only apps and browser in the Scalefusion managed rugged devices and can also limit user access by locking the Android rugged devices into single or multi app kiosk mode. This stops device and data abuse from harmful apps and unsafe websites
Track location and apply geo-fence: IT admin can leverage Scalefusion MDM to apply single or multiple geofence on Android rugged devices and it also enables the IT admin to track the device’s precise location in real time with details such as longitude, time and latitude. This feature makes sure that the devices are always under surveillance. IT admins get notifications as soon as the device leaves or enters the specific geo-location to capture necessary device usage ad security information.
Support data encryption: Scalefusion MDM ensures that the data and files stored within the devices, whether at rest or in transit, are encrypted. It supports FileDoc Encryption and Message Encryption system that aims to keep the corporate data, files, apps, messages and content lying within the Android rugged devices secure from abuse and cyber-attacks.
Remote monitoring of device inventory: Scalefusion MDM comes with device inventory intelligence, named DeepDive, which provides a bird’s eye view of all the managed Android rugged devices from the dashboard. Scalefusion DeepDive allows the IT admin to have a 360-degree view with deep insights of the entire device inventory including details like platform summary, device details, compliance violations, device status and so on. DeepDive allows instant view of what is happening with which device at the very moment.

Also Read: How to manage rugged devices for your frontline workers

Scalefusion as an MDM is highly rated by the customers for its unique management and security capabilities that seamlessly allow the IT admin to manage, monitor, update and secure corporate-owned rugged devices with proven ease and efficiency.

Try Scalefusion in free for 14 days.