Review by Michael Smith
MojoPac, by RingCube, in its Enterprise form especially, as it comes also in a free domestic user version, is basically a portable secure desktop environment on Windows PCs. With the right configuration and especially when installed on secured USB drives it becomes a highly secure virtual computer desktop that can be used on any host computer running Windows XP (and Vista?).
Increasingly, corporate resources are being accessed, often already as a matter of routine, from unmanaged endpoints. This could be employees working from their home computers, consultants and contractors using their personal assets, and corporate road warriors using public resources such as hotel business centers and kiosks, or Intenet cafes even.
These unmanaged environments increase the risk of introducing viruses, spyware, and other threats to corporate resources. In addition, these usage scenarios create opportunities for losing data - whether intentional or unintentional - through key-loggers, USB ports, optical drives and printing or screen captures. In addition to that many computers store information of transactions and anyone wishing to know what has been done on the PC could, with the right means, find the trace and even passwords.
The MojoPac Solution
With MojoPac, an enterprise can encapsulate an entire desktop software environment including applications, data, settings, and security policies and then run the environment on any personal computer. An unmanaged desktop is instantly transformed into a secure corporate environment, isolated from the host system. The enterprise can also enforce security policies within the environment and prevent actions such as printing, writing to optical or USB drives, or copying from the clipboard. This ability to control the copying of corporate data off the endpoint greatly improves the company's ability to control desktop data leakage.
As an added measure of security, MojoPac can also scan the host before booting to detect the presence of endpoint security applications such as antivirus, antispyware, antipshishing, and firewalls. If the endpoint does not meet the minimum corporate security requirements for its computing environment, MojoPac can abort execution and warn the end user. This insures that MojoPac virtual desktop will operate on an acceptable host machine.
Finally, because the entire MojoPac image (not only data, but applications and settings) is easily encrypted and backed up, MojoPac is safer and easier to recover in case of loss or theft. This enables a much quicker, seamless, and more transparent recovery of the users environment when compared to the procedure to recover a typical laptop.
Solution Benefits
In summary, MojoPac greatly improves desktop security by providing:
- A truly mobile yet secure, encrypted computing environment allowing end users to be productive on any desktop device.
- A managed environment isolated from the host PC insuring an added security layer between the corporate application environment and the host.
- Desktop scan for the presence of necessary endpoint security applications to extend corporate security policies to unmanaged endpoints.
- A simplified backup strategy saving time and money while increasing productivity.
MojoPac can be seen as the substitute portable desktop for use with Windows PCs, especially if in conjunction with a device such as the MXI Security Stealth MXP USB drive, to ensure you have your own secure desktop environment regardless where you happen to use a computer, whether at a library, an Internet cafe, or elsewhere.
Having had the opportunity to review MojoPac Enterprise on a secure USB drive by MXI I must say that I can see the benefits even for myself, even though I do not run a large organization or corporation. Even for the lone road warrior and freelance or otherwise journalist who has to work from another PC, other than his own secured one, this is the right solution.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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