IOS – Private Key and Certificate protection on IOS

certificateios

I have a question about private key protection on iOS.

I simply would like to know if there is a way of protecting client's certificates when importing them to an iPad.

For example, when installing a certificate on an Android device, it forces me to set a pin or pass phrase to the device, which can't be disabled until the certificate is deleted.

Is there something like that in iOS?

Edit: In my case, I'm speaking of private devices used for professional activity. It means that we can't applied any MDM policy solution (because we don't own the device).
Am I right?

Best Answer

Yes, iOS has MDM functionality built in to it to enforce enrollment into a policy framework where the device has to obey profile restrictions.

Passphrase restrictions was one of the first things to be deployed - perhaps around iOS 4.

You can use Apple's Server.app to set up these profiles as well as Apple Configurator and many third party MDM solutions can help you configure the OS to secure and introduce certificates and public/private key chains of trust.

Apple documents this at a high level at http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html and once you have read up on how configuration profiles work, feel free to ask another more narrow question if you run into any difficulties.