It is the age of BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – and the workplace is full of professionals who use the same tablet and/or smartphone for both their personal lives and their at-work lives. BYOD is a mutually beneficial setup: employees don’t have to manage “work” devices and “home” devices, and employers don’t have to purchase devices for their employees.

But with the benefits, some concerns arise as well. First and foremost, how do you keep all these different devices secure? The BYOD trend has made the issue of device security more important than ever. Different manufacturers have taken different strategies to keep their devices—and users—safe. Business users should review tablet and smartphone comparisons to look at how different top brands approach security.

BlackBerry

Long hailed for its security measures, Research in Motion (RIM) made sure to keep its devices and network airtight with the recent release of BlackBerry 10: Months before it hit the shelves, BlackBerry 10 was approved for use by the United States government.

How do they do it?

It helps that BlackBerry has its own operating system in place: All BlackBerry devices run on a BlackBerry operating system, meaning that security configurations fit specifically with the device they’re used on.

Additionally, new BlackBerry 10 programs like BlackBerry Balance also prevent classified information from being hacked or otherwise accessed. BlackBerry Balance essentially creates separate suites for users to access information, apps and data from independent areas of their life. This helped BlackBerry score another major victory: In the beginning of March 2013, the German government placed a major order for security-enhanced BlackBerry 10 devices, citing BlackBerry Balance as a major selling point.

Samsung/Android

Samsung Knox – named, presumably, after the famous Texan gold-storage facility Fort Knox—takes a different approach to BYOD security. Rather than solidifying its device-by-device security package, in Knox Samsung has created a comprehensive security package for enterprises to purchase for their respective networks.

Samsung Knox

Samsung aims to patch a hole in its reputation caused by criticisms of its security, some of which went as far as to declare devices like the Galaxy Tab unfit for enterprise use. With Knox, Samsung hopes to stake out its place in the enterprise world.

Samsung Knox separates business and personal apps, allows for remote deletion of confidential data, and secures the process by which businesses share and access data. Samsung, a leader of the Android community, expects that all Android enterprise security will be toughened up by the introduction of Samsung Knox.

Apple

Apple made waves last summer when it purchased AuthenTec, a security solutions company known best for creating a widely used fingerprint-access system for smartphones and tablets. Around the time, industry pundits speculated that Apple was making major changes to its security strategies. In addition to fingerprint technology, AuthenTec also manufactured security chips and network security encryption systems.

So far, dramatic results have yet to show, but it seems likely that the purchase of AuthenTec is part of Apple’s strategy to break into the professional and enterprise market.

Whatever the end result, Apple’s approach seems to offer a third major route to sufficient security for personal and business use.

With BYOD becoming so popular, it’s no wonder companies are trying out so many different strategies.