Samsung and Microsoft team up to offer improved phone security for enterprises

Samsung and Microsoft have just announced they signed a strategic partnership to enhance phone security for business customers. The new solution is called “device attestation” and it’s supposed to ensure a device’s identity and health, verifying that it has not been compromised.

Device attestation is now available on Samsung Galaxy devices and combined with protection from Microsoft Intune to add enhanced security and flexibility. Aimed at enterprises, the new solution is an extra layer of protection against compromised devices falsely claiming to be known and healthy, gaining access to sensitive corporate data.

According to Samsung, device attestation is supported on select Galaxy smartphones and tablets, including “Security by Knox” devices with Android 10 or later. The company also notes that in order to be eligible for the solution, devices must have run Android 9 or later at the time of launch.

“Samsung is committed to meaningful innovations that are as secure as they are versatile and optimized. As work habits evolve and people are working from virtually anywhere on any device, we are paving the way for the future of enterprise device security and democratizing the means for businesses to better protect their information,” said KC Choi, EVP and Head of Global Mobile B2B Team, MX Business at Samsung Electronics.

Last but not least, the solution provided by the two giants works on both managed and unmanaged devices regardless of ownership. This is unusual since traditional device attestation mainly works on managed devices because it is server-based and requires network connectivity.

Since this is a mobile hardware-backed attestation, enterprises will be able to verify a device’s integrity and allow access to the corporate system whether it’s managed or unmanaged. Furthermore, the user experience is also streamlined to make it easier for employees to bring their personal devices to work and safely access the corporate system without extra security steps.