CNN published an excellent piece this weekend about the growing threat of attacks against smartphones. Sales of smartphones continues to grow at an unprecendented rate. More importantly, what people are using their smartphones for continues to evolve as well.
While most people have traditionally used smartphones for telephone calls and e-mail, more and more are using them for web based activity as well. This is not just surfing mobile web sites, but using corporate applications, accessing company data and even performing financial transactions. As the article states, while most computer users are familiar with how to know if a web site is secure or not, that's not necessarily so on a smartphone. Fortunately, it's also harder to exploit a smartphone, but that does not mean it is not happening or continuing to grow in severity.
While traditional virus and malware threats are not a one to one relation between those that attack computers and those that attack smartphones, simple threats like loss or theft are very serious concerns. Far more smartphones were lost or stolen last year than computers. If those smartphones did not employ passwords or appropriate device encryption, the data on those devices may have been exposed.
I have blogged in the past about the need to establish at least basic security on your smartphone and this article reinforces this important need. I have also blogged about pending legislation, some of which becomes law over the next six months, that will require you to secure and encrypt these devices.
I encourage you to read the CNN article here and heed its advice.
