What is a Secure Enclave?

As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) becomes more prevalent in modern workplaces, the need for robust security of unmanaged devices grows. Although BYOD empowers employees with flexibility and choice, it poses unique challenges for IT and security teams. When company and personal data coexist on the same device, protecting corporate data is a critical concern. Balancing that with user privacy complicates things even further.

Historically, organizations have attempted to deal with this challenge through various types of security solutions: VDI, VPN, enterprise browsers, etc. However, these solutions tend to miss the mark when it comes to achieving security, the numerous productivity benefits of enabling native workflows on BYOD and protecting personal privacy.

A new approach that stands out from the rest? Secure Enclaves.

In this blog post, we will dive into the capabilities of a Secure Enclave and the value BYOD security solutions should deliver to enterprises.

What is a Secure Enclave and What Capabilities Does it Provide?

A Secure Enclave is a separate, secure “enclave” or workspace on an unmanaged device, isolating work-related activities from personal activities to prevent cross-access. This means that company data and applications within the enclave are encrypted and walled off from the rest of the device.

A Secure Enclave addresses the BYOD security challenge by providing a user-friendly yet highly secure solution, ensuring business data is protected on unmanaged laptops while maintaining end-user privacy and employee productivity.

1. Isolation and Protection

A Secure Enclave sits on the personal device, but everything within it is company-managed, while personal activities are off-limits to the organization. The enclave is visually marked, often by a distinct border distinguishing work windows from personal windows, allowing users to distinguish between personal and business applications and activities. 

This separation ensures that users’ personal files and activities remain private, while work data is fully protected from zero-day vulnerabilities, privilege escalation attacks and other risks.

2. Data Security

A Secure Enclave uses an encrypted, unwritable virtual drive within the enclave. This drive can only be accessed by applications and data within the enclave. Organizations can manage permissions and enforce access policies to the enclave.

For data at rest, the Secure Enclave includes robust DLP controls, including limitations on file access, storage, browser usage, copy/paste, screen capture privileges and peripheral usage.

For data in transit, all network traffic within the enclave is routed through a secure tunnel, using a static, dedicated IP unique to the company.

This prevents malware or unauthorized access to work-related data and reduces the risk of data breaches if malware affects other parts of the device.

3. Localization

A Secure Enclave does not stream applications. Instead, it launches applications locally on the unmanaged device from within the Secure Enclave. This minimizes latency and provides a native application experience, which is often more user-friendly than virtual desktop environments.

4. Flexible Deployment and Offboarding  

These can be deployed rapidly via a welcome email and link. Users can download the necessary applications and gain access to their secure workspace quickly. When an employee leaves a company, administrators can remotely wipe all work-related data in the enclave without affecting personal files in real-time.

This setup ensures adoption and productivity among users and IT alike.

5. User-Friendly

A Secure Enclave supports any personal laptop device – Mac or PC – allowing flexibility in device choice for end users and without forcing an Office experience on Mac users. This enhances adoption and productivity.

6. Privacy

User activities outside the enclave are not accessible or monitored by the user’s employer, ensuring personal data and applications remain private and untouched. This allows users to feel comfortable using their devices for personal use.

7. Compliance

A Secure Enclave meets various regulatory and compliance requirements by isolating and securing sensitive data within the enclave. Often, a Secure Enclave can help companies ensure HIPAA, FINRA, SEC, NAIC, and/or SOC 2 compliance. This ensures organizations across industries can use the Secure Enclave.

What Isn’t a Secure Enclave?

To understand the limitations of solutions that are not a Secure Enclave in unmanaged device protection, it’s important to clarify the distinctions.

1. Centralized Application Hosting –  A Secure Enclave does not function like a cloud-hosted or centralized VDI. Instead, applications run locally on the user’s device within the enclave, ensuring a native experience with minimal latency. Unlike centralized hosting, Secure Enclaves avoid dependencies on constant internet connectivity or the high costs and complexities of maintaining server-based application delivery, which can be detrimental to users’ productivity and IT teams’ stress levels.
2. Centralized Management of All Work-Related Devices – While Secure Enclaves allow companies to manage and protect the enclave on individual devices, they do not provide centralized control over the entire device. For example, IT teams cannot enforce policies or configurations outside the enclave’s boundaries, nor do they have visibility into personal device usage. This approach prioritizes user privacy while still securing company data and without turning IT into a logistics company for shipping and maintaining managed devices.
3. Complete Network Isolation – Secure Enclaves protect work-related data by routing traffic through secure, company-managed tunnels. However, they do not entirely isolate the device from external networks. Personal applications and internet activity outside the enclave operate as usual. This contrasts with solutions like VPNs or air-gapped systems, which impose complete network segregation and are more complex, expensive and cumbersome for users.
4. Built-In Logging and Monitoring Tools – Secure Enclaves are designed to protect company data and ensure user privacy, but they do not include comprehensive logging or monitoring of the user’s entire device. Unlike EDR solutions, Secure Enclaves do not capture activity outside the enclave, such as network access, user behavior, or desktop-wide security events. By integrating with monitoring tools, the Secure Enclave allows monitoring and ensures it is limited to the workspace. This allows the company to monitor work activity while meeting compliance with privacy expectations and reducing noise for IT and security teams.
5. Endpoint Security Solution – While a Secure Enclave provides strong protection for data and applications within its workspace, it is not a replacement for traditional endpoint security tools such as antivirus software, EDR, or EPP. These tools are designed to protect the entire device from threats like malware, phishing, and unauthorized access. A Secure Enclave focuses solely on isolating and securing the company-managed environment without extending its protection to the rest of the device.
6. Access Management A Secure Enclave is not an identity or access management (IAM) solution. While it can enforce access policies within the enclave, its core capability is not verifying BYOD users for network access, like a ZTNA solution. Integrating Secure Enclaves with existing IAM solutions ensures that access control extends beyond the enclave to all enterprise resources, maintaining a comprehensive security framework.
7. Solely Web-Based Protection – A Secure Enclave is not limited to protecting browser-based activities or web applications. Unlike browser-based solutions like Enterprise Browsers, Secure Enclaves secure a broader range of local applications, files, and data within the enclave, which is aligned to modern environments that use both web and local applications for work. They provide a comprehensive environment for work-related activities, ensuring that company resources remain secure across applications beyond just web-based tools.

Top Secure Enclave Vendors Understand that Security Is Only the Start of BYOD Benefits

BYOD security isn’t just about securing BYOD traffic, endpoint protection, or managing access. It’s about ensuring contractors and remote employees can work securely and use their devices as before, while ensuring that company data is secure, compliance needs are met and employees’ privacy concerns are addressed.

Meet Venn’s Secure Enclave Built for Enterprise

Venn is revolutionizing the future of remote work by enabling organizations to securely embrace BYOD. Our patented technology protects company data and applications on unmanaged computers used by contractors and remote employees without VDI. Customers are empowered to achieve the cost savings and workforce agility of BYOD, while ensuring robust data protection and compliance. With Venn, work lives in a company-controlled Secure Enclave – visually indicated by Blue Border™ – protecting and isolating business activity from any personal use on the same computer. Join the 700+ organizations, including Fidelity, Guardian, and Voya, that trust Venn to meet FINRA, SEC, HIPAA, NAIC, and SOC 2 standards. Learn more at venn.com

Sign up for a demo today.