| Without strong mutual (bi-directional) authentication a mobile device may connect to an unauthorized mobile device management (MDM) server and obtain improper security policies or configuration commands from that server. This could, in turn, make the device vulnerable to a wide variety of other attacks that could reveal sensitive information and enable an adversary to obtain full control of the device. Cryptographic mutual authentication greatly mitigates this risk. Shared secret methods are an acceptable alternative to PKI-based authentication. The authentication need not be performed synchronously, but methods using asynchronous messages must still employ mutual authentication. For example, the MDM may digitally sign a configuration message encrypted with the mobile device's public key. This would, in effect, authenticate the mobile device because no other device would be able to access the configuration. |
