Tablets and Smartphones will drive next wave of web filtering

It's inevitable. With Apple's success in both the iPhone and iPad, and the resulting copycats in tablets and smartphones, there's no doubt that tablets and smartphones are finding their way into the corporate office. While that's no problem when you're on wifi and connected through the corporate network, with protection from the corporate proxy or secure web gateway, it is an issue for those products that move off the corporate network on to public and other private wifi networks, and for those that have cellular data plans and are surfing over the their provider's networks.

There's already been news reports popping up about anti-virus and anti-malware products from operating systems like Android, used on smartphones and tablets, and I'm expecting as we move forward into 2011, you'll see a lot more companies jumping on the bandwidth and providing support and protection for tablets and smartphones.

For now, make sure your corporate wifi network routes through your corporate proxy / secure web gateway, so that these devices are at least protected, while they're on the corporate network.