Samsung is a giant in the mobile industry, capturing sales records around the world, with its Galaxy S4 smartphone and the market segment it created and owns, the phablet, with its Galaxy Note 3. It is chewing up the tablet competition on its quest to be the number one tablet maker. In all of those areas, Samsung seems to be succeeding in the marketplace – the consumer market, that is, but where it is looking to make huge strides is in the business enterprise world.
With the consumer U.S. market becoming more and more saturated in high-end devices, Samsung has to look to the enterprise and government market segment to increase its foothold and profits in the U.S. Where many businesses used to insist on BlackBerry devices for secure communications, employee pressure has caused many businesses to offer the old BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to work concept. The military also gave it blessing to the Samsung Galaxy S series, finally busting through the once strictly BlackBerry market segment. Workers wanted to use their iPhones, Galaxy S4’s, and Galaxy Note’s for both home and at the workplace – they neither wanted to carry two devices, or go from the high-end smartphone they personally use to an “ancient” BlackBerry for work purposes.
Samsung developed its KNOX security system to satisfy the protection that the business enterprise IT people were looking for, as well as, keep that same business enterprise from invading the user’s personal information stored on the device – it internally separated the smartphone into “two devices,” so that your personal information would remain personal and the business information would be stored securely, and never the two shall meet. The Galaxy S4 was the first Samsung device to receive KNOX, followed by the Galaxy Note 3, with plans to offer KNOX 2.0 on all of its smartphones and tablets, and Samsung even created a new App Store for Enterprises.
With all of these “business doors” finally opening up to Samsung, that last thing they need is a scandal regarding their KNOX security system, but according to the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) and pocketnow, that is exactly what some researchers out of Israel are claiming – that KNOX cannot only be hacked to intercept communications, but that they can even insert data without anybody being the wiser. But a Samsung spokesperson said:
“The threat appears to be equivalent to some well-known attacks. Rest assured, the core Knox architecture cannot be compromised or infiltrated by such malware.”
We can only go by what Samsung tells us at this point as far as the true extent of the vulnerability of KNOX, but we do know that Samsung cannot afford any bad PR if it wants to take over from BlackBerry as the “device of choice” for their enterprise security., so they better squash this notion and assure businesses that their information will remain secure.
Let us know on our Google+ Page what you think about KNOX – have you used it where you work and how do you like it so far.