Portfolios of task-oriented mobile apps for employees, contractors and business partners have been transforming the way enterprises conduct business, Apperian reported last week. Companies that have launched mobility initiatives have customized and deployed one or more apps that have streamlined business operations, according to the firm's analysis of 2 million app deployments.

The use of mobile devices provides significant benefits in convenience and workplace productivity. However, two recent reports indicate that U.S. government workers often ignore security protocols associated with mobile IT. The Office of Personnel Management hack revealed earlier this year drove an effort to address federal IT security. That effort largely has bypassed mobile device security.

Shadow IT -- the use of unauthorized online services by company employees -- is a concern of cyberwarriors charged with defending business systems against network attacks. There's new evidence that those concerns are justified. A new attack vector on business systems leverages the synchronization features of services like Dropbox and Google Drive to perform malicious mischief.

It was a little over a year ago that the Heartbleed bug shocked the Internet with its potential for mischief. Now another flaw in open source code has sent network administrators into damage control mode. The bug, called "Venom" for "Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation," allows an intruder to jump out of a virtual machine and execute malicious code on its host.

BlackBerry introduced its new Leap smartphone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Equipped with a touchscreen rather than a physical keyboard, the Leap is a successor to BlackBerry's Z3 model. Its enhanced security and performance features are designed to appeal to young professionals and startup companies. BlackBerry is counting on the Leap to help it bounce back.

There were 9 billion Internet of Things units installed at the end of 2013 -- and analysts expect the figure to hit 28 billion by 2020. That's going to make life difficult for IT security admins. A Tripwire survey found that employed consumers who took work home had an average of 11 IoT devices on their home networks, and 24 percent of them had connected at least one of these devices to their enterprise network.

I was at IBM's z13 mainframe launch last week, and it brought back a lot of memories, because I was at IBM when the era of the mainframe collapsed. I also happened to be covering Apple when the era of the Mac collapsed, following the launch of Windows 95, and I have watched both companies recover -- largely by rediscovering what made them great in the first place.

Blackphone plans to open an app store for privacy-focused applications to run on its secure smartphone. The store is expected to launch in January. The Blackphone runs PrivatOS, a modified version of Android 4.4.2 that comes bundled with tools that encrypt phone calls, texts, emails and Internet browsing. The app store will feature curated apps selected for their security and privacy chops.

A new version of the NotCompatible malware, which first appeared in 2012, is bigger, badder and pretty much indestructible, Lookout Security reported. And it can compromise corporate networks, thanks to the BYOD trend. The malware, called "NotCompatible C," focuses on Android devices. The NotCompatible Trojan is used to spread spam campaigns, among other nefarious activities.

Researchers at FireEye on Monday made public the existence of the Masque Attack, which threatens iOS and Mac OS X operating systems. Masque Attack exploits a flaw in Apple's OSes that allows the replacement of one app by another so long as both apps use the same bundle identifier. All apps, except those preinstalled on iOS, such as Mobile Safari, can be replaced.

Using personal devices to conduct business has become commonplace, whether employers require it or employees voluntary do so. The use of personal devices creates a privacy challenge. Employers want access to the devices, and employees want to protect their personal data contained on them. The term "devices" itself is deceiving. Many consider employee-owned devices to be smartphones and tablets.

BlackBerry on Wednesday will hold official launch events for its much-anticipated and potentially game-changing Passport smartphone in Toronto, London and Dubai. The Passport's unique square-shaped form factor is designed with business and professional users in mind. In the run-up to these events, BlackBerry CEO John Chen announced that the Passport will be priced at $599 for an unlocked version.

The BYOD trend offers pluses for both employers and employees, but sometimes there's a hitch. Under certain circumstances, the owner of a device suddenly might lose all of the data stored on it. Clients of Fiberlink remotely wiped 81,000 mobile devices between January and June. About 30,000 of them, or 37 percent, were cleaned of everything -- including personal data.

Wireless carriers pose a threat to mobile phone security, researchers have disclosed. Mathew Solnik and Marc Blanchou of Accuvant this week told an audience at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas that Android, BlackBerry and some iOS devices are vulnerable. The problem lies in a device management tool using the OMA Device Management Standard, which carriers embed into mobile devices.

The news that Apple and IBM have joined forces sent a shockwave through the Apple-focused world this week, and I admit it, I was surprised. At first glance, the deal seems to be this big group hug with the two companies becoming inextricably entwined. Yeah, it's not that. In fact, this is the biggest deal that really isn't all that "BIG" that I've seen in a long time.

Doing a factory reset to wipe the data off smartphones does not work, and the data can be recovered, warned Avast. The company recovered tons of data, including more than 40,000 stored photographs, from 20 used Android phones purchased from eBay. Device owners need to overwrite their files to make them irretrievable, Avast said, touting one of the applications it offers.

As if the discovery of the Heartbleed flaw weren't enough woe for OpenSSL, more than half a dozen additional defects have been discovered in the code used to protect communication on the Web. Among them is one dubbed "Cupid" by its discoverers. The flaw can be used to compromise enterprise networks. Like Heartbleed, Cupid uses a malicious heartbeat packet to compromise a TLS connection.

Salesforce.com has announced that its Salesforce1 Mobile App will be generally available in the company's summer release. The app will be accompanied by an enterprise ecosystem consisting of some 65 partner apps, a new connector for SAP, and a slew of new features around sales, service and marketing functionality, said Michael Peachey, senior director of mobile products for Salesforce.com.

Security pros weren't very kind to mobile applications last week. A number of firms knocked apps produced for the smartphone market for all kinds of risky behaviors that could lead to trouble not only for mobile device owners, but also for their employers. While Android has been a poster child for misbehaving apps in the past, competitor Apple's apps aren't as pristine as is commonly believed.

We have met the enemy and he is us. Pogo's philosophical observation perfectly describes the way IT and security professionals view their end users' attitude toward data security. An overwhelming 80 percent of corporate security professionals and IT administrators indicated in a recent survey that "end user carelessness" constituted the biggest security threat to their organizations.

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is an established trend at many U.S. enterprises, and it's likely to continue to grow. Mobile marketing is an established channel through which many U.S. companies reach customers and prospective customers -- and it also is expected to grow. Is 2014 the year the twain will meet? Will marketers begin targeting consumers at work?

Rumors that Samsung will include iris-recognition technology in its forthcoming Galaxy S5 smartphone, widely expected to be launched in April, were given a boost on Thursday through an interview with Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung Mobile. People are "fanatical" about iris recognition technology and Samsung is "studying the possibility," Lee said.

The recent and rapid evolution of mobile and client management requirements has caused considerable complexity and confusion. Incomplete solutions and a lack of a clear pan-client strategy have hampered the move to broader mobile support at enterprises and mid-market companies alike. This state of muddled direction has put IT in a bind while frustrating users.

Smartphones hacked to run unauthorized programs or unlock features are being targeted by hackers and can pose a threat to enterprise networks, warned Marble Security. Modifying a smartphone to enable unauthorized behavior -- called "rooting" in the Android world and "jailbreaking" in the iOS realm -- makes the mobile vulnerable to infected jammer software, the firm said.

AT&T on Thursday announced new, lower-cost no-contract plans for customers who pay for their own devices. The new Mobile Share Value plans, which will be available beginning Dec. 8, will be open to new and existing wireless customers and will include a no-contract option that allows smartphone customers to save $15 per month by supplying their own device, AT&T said.

Dropbox began courting enterprise users with Wednesday's unveiling of Dropbox for Business. It's a paid cloud storage service that offers enterprise users the same features that have made Dropbox a popular file-hosting company among consumers, along with several security and efficiency-focused features tailored for businesses, such as sharing audit logs and efficiently transferring files.

The growing adoption of Bring Your Own Device policies by organizations of all sizes, across nearly every industry, has enabled corporate end-users and business units to more easily acquire apps tailored to their specific work requirements. This Bring Your Own Apps phenomenon, often referred to as the "consumerization of IT," has sparked a new round of debate among CIOs and other corporate executives.

Apple will likely debut a new iPad and possibly a new iPad mini at its Tuesday event in San Francisco. There is speculation about a new CPU, a keyboard case, better cameras, a splash of color, and the likelihood the new iPad will come preloaded with the buggy iOS 7. If the enterprise is looking for a little more business-friendliness from Apple, it may not find much gratification this time around.

The acquisition process for the latest innovation must keep pace with the ever changing IT landscape. In the public sector, that process has surfaced in acquisition vehicles related to cloud technology, data management and IT security. For the U.S. government, the GSA has become a focal point for developing contract vehicles and programs to facilitate the acquisition of innovative IT.

Google on Tuesday rolled out a feature for its recently launched Android Device Manager that lets users lock down a stolen Android device from anywhere, via the Web. "This is something that should be built into the OS and the platform because it's an inherent security feature," said tech analyst Rob Enderle. Google is late to the game in rolling out its remote lock capability.