Bluebox Security Partners with F5 Networks, GlobalSign

Mobile app security provider Bluebox Security has partnered with F5 Networks (FFIV) and GlobalSign as the company looks to provide users with new ways to protect their enterprise mobile applications.

Last week, Bluebox signed on as a member of the F5 Networks Technology Partner Program, and this week the company signed a partnership agreement with GlobalSign, an Internet of Everything-centric identity and security solution provider. While each of the companies deals in different aspects of mobile security, the overarching theme of Bluebox’s partnerships is the development of enhanced security for enterprise applications across the entire network.

For its agreement with F5, Bluebox has fostered integration between the F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager and the Bluebox security and analytics framework. The joint solution allows users to combine Bluebox’s application self-defense policies with F5’s per-app VPN policies, thus eliminating the need for company wide VPN or containerization solutions. This is expected to be particularly useful for organizations that share internal data on unmanaged devices for their BYOD employees, according to Bluebox.

“Our partnership with F5 addresses critical security needs as mobile enterprise applications become incorporated into business workflows,” said Subbu Iyer, vice president of Product Management at Bluebox Security, in a statement. “Our zero-touch security framework allows administrators to seamlessly integrate F5’s market leading access control capabilities into Bluebox-secured enterprise apps, without app developer involvement or an EMM.”

For its Globalsign partnership, Bluebox is also looking to promote end-to-end protection across the network, but with the added twist of ensuring that unauthorized users cannot access enterprise data stored on mobile devices. The company plans to achieve this by creating a more consistent environment of app security and visibility, according to Pam Kostka, CEO of Bluebox.

Bluebox said it will work with a select group of enterprise mobile management platforms to help GlobalSign’s enterprise customers set up digital identities on their mobile devices. From there, organizations can push security remotely to users’ mobile devices as well as implement per-app VPN policies via Bluebox’s software.

“As more enterprise organizations continue to enable employees to ‘bring their own devices,’ it becomes increasingly challenging to address critical security concerns associated with sensitive data accessed outside the protected network perimeter,” said Lila Kee, chief products officer at GlobalSign. “With Bluebox providing security at the app layer and our PKI certificate and identity and access management solutions addressing security at the device and user layers, we have a very strong security offering for mobile devices.”

Bluebox is not the only company that is stepping up its mobile protection efforts; last month, Apperian released its 2015 Enterprise Mobile App Trend Report, which found the average company with an enterprise mobility initiative has one ore more transformative apps in use.

Other companies, such as Shape Security, are pioneering new ways to protect enterprise information on mobile devices with the launch of polymorphic sign-in technology. VMware has also gotten more involved in mobile data protection, with the company recently announcing an expanded partnership with Intel Security to create joint solutions for the AirWatch EMM platform.