The Postal Service is reminding employees that their USPS-issued smartphones will be placed in quarantine after April 23 if they don’t keep the operating system up to date.
Outdated operating systems pose a security risk that exposes smartphones and the postal network to hackers and other malicious actors.
Employees must keep their USPS-issued smartphones current with the latest operating systems.
The organization will place iPhones missing current or prior updates in quarantine in order to protect the postal network.
Similarly, “jailbroken” iPhones or “rooted” Android phones — devices that have had a manufacturer’s software restrictions intentionally removed by the user — will also be quarantined.
An iPhone will also be retired and put out of service if it has not been connected to a mobile management software console for more than 30 days.
Android smartphones are not at risk of being quarantined — unless they have been rooted.
Before a phone is quarantined, the employee will receive 15- and 30-day notifications in their USPS email accounts explaining that their phone’s operating system is no longer compliant.
The user will also receive a text pop-up on the mobile device after 30 days of not being in compliance.
To remove a smartphone from quarantine, users will have to connect their device to a MobileIron MDM console. Once connected, a compliance check will run every eight hours to check for software updates.
Once updates have been installed, the device will be removed from quarantine.