Samsung may have emerged as a mobile superpower in the consumer industry, but has very much struggled to corner the enterprise market. Businesses used to iPhone or BlackBerry are not switching to Samsung, and much of the reason for this can be attributed to security issues. The South Korean company has tried to put forward its case for a chunk of the enterprise pie by introducing its KNOX security platform, which is supposed to bolster Android and provide a more robust and secure environment for those in requirement of it, but unfortunately, as spotted by one security expert, it’s massively flawed and leaves the famous Galaxy S4 strictly at risk.
BlackBerry may have posted shattering losses for Q3 of this year, but its enterprise audience is arguably keeping it afloat right now, and with Apple’s iOS quickly becoming the platform of choice, Samsung has been left behind on Android.
KNOX was intended to entice the enterprise market by adding a layer of secure business apps atop Android, but cyber-security researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have spotted a significant vulnerability in devices running Knox.
A report over at The Wall Street Journal notes that the security hole could allow a hacker to snap up supposedly secure date “easily” on Samsung handsets. All users of the KNOX software are said to be at risk, and considering that this is designed to be safer than your traditional environment, it doesn’t make for happy reading that, at its current duration, KNOX can leak communications data, emails, and other such sensitive info to hackers.
With BlackBerry seemingly falling off the map, this would be a good time for Samsung to gather some of the enterprise market, but reports like this certainly will not help matters. It’s unknown how well the KNOX software is doing to help cajole these enterprise users onside, but one read of this report and no doubt they’ll be scrambling back to their BlackBerry and iOS devices.
The Galaxy maker has issues a response on the matter, and has tried to play down the severity by stating that the security hole isn’t as bad as is being claimed. Still, if you do happen to be using KNOX, surely you’ll be hoping for news of a fix sooner rather than later!
(Source: WSJ)
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