Couple those figures with these Pradeo “ Mobile Security Report 2018” key findings and concerns are more than warranted: And with 5G deployments already underway, we’re going to become more dependent on wireless communications, not less.Ī 2018 Pew study showed 95 percent of Americans own a cellphone of some kind, and 77 percent own smartphones.
Users wait days or weeks to update their OS, if at all. But phone users haven’t reached automatic in their minds yet. Some even regularly update desktop or laptop OSs. You see, with “computers,” it’s pretty ingrained into the minds of even the most basic users that you need some sort of defense in the form of an antivirus or firewall. Save the SMS listeners, computers are vulnerable to the exact same things, demonstrating the need for secure mobile solutions that resemble desktop or laptop fixes. Today’s phones are susceptible to ransomware, public/rogue Wi-Fi networks, man-in-the-middle attacks, SMS listeners and phishing attacks (or the SMS variant, smishing). They get a major double score: A hugely expanded target map that is easier to access and a reduction in necessary resources needed to hit the entirety of that map. Today, malicious actors take comfort knowing that 97 percent of mobile devices run one of two operating systems (OSs) and that malware is so effective, it can even be made to be device-specific. The Common Denominator Gives Malicious Actors the AdvantageĪpart from rare exceptions, proprietary or device-specific operating systems are gone, something that would make attack vectors more difficult. That’s a big part of why we have some of today’s mobile security problems too many users are still mentally locked into thinking it’s a phone when it is so much more. Twenty years later, we’re still calling these devices in our pockets phones. The answer was simple to me: I was no longer using a phone, I was using a computer. I would confuse people when they, sitting on their desktops, could not figure out how I was on my phone chatting with them through instant messaging. The Nokia 9000 Communicator (1998) was a machine and the Ericsson R380 (2000) was marketed as the world’s first “smartphone,” but it was the Sony Ericsson P800 (2002) that warped minds.
…and a Communications Device to a Computer
Woah, woah, woah! You can send a message from your phone? And just like that, I did a deep dive into the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Bluetooth and the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). I saw a friend pitter-pattering away on their phone and asked what they were doing. From a Phone to a Communications Device…Ī trip to Europe in the 1990s changed my communications world. What I didn’t know at the time was how easy this made mobile communications. One of the coolest features my phone and network could support was the receipt of short email messages - no send capabilities. I was one of the first in my circles to have a cellular phone. Do you remember your first mobile phone, and the newfound feelings of connectedness and convenience that came with it?