Provisioning data includes operating system configuration, key material, and other initialization data. It may be sensitive and therefore must be adequately protected. An adversary within the general proximity of the mobile device can eavesdrop on OTA transactions, making them particularly vulnerable to attack if confidentiality protections are not in place. Proper use of cryptography provides strong assurance that provisioning data is protected against confidentiality attacks.
When dealing with access restrictions pertaining to change control, it should be noted that any changes to the hardware, software, and/or firmware components of the information system can potentially have significant effects on the overall security of the system. Mutual authentication ensures both that the device is authorized for provisioning and that a rogue provisioning server is not used to obtain software. In this context, provisioning refers to configuration elements specific to the organization and user, and not installation of the base mobile OS. One way to ensure authentication of the server is to require that the MOS point to a specified URL for the provisioning process, and authenticate the URL-specified server using SSL/TLS. |