October 6th, 2008

Talkback Tuesday: Mobile Malware

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 11:16 pm

Categories: Malware, Mobile (In)Security, Punditocracy

Tags: Mobile, Malware, Mobile Device, Mobile Malware, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Cyberthreats, Advertising & Promotion, Security, Viruses And Worms, Marketing

Last week I wrote two posts about why I was not concerned about mobile malware right now, but I expected mobile malware to become a problem in the near future. There were several responses to the two posts, including the following:

Phatkat writes:

Most crackers (hackers gone bad) are doing this for monetary gain so like most people want to put the minimal amount effort to get the maximum gain. Mobile devices are such a nice diverse group of devices that crackers haven’t found the “maximum economic benefit” cracking at one type of mobile device.

I 100% agree with this statement, particularly when we define mobile malware as being an endemic security threat. There will always be proof-of-concept attacks against one platform or another, but the point in time where you have to worry is when real money and real time is being lost.

More importantly, there are plenty of security threats associated with mobile devices that have nothing to do with malware. Any CSO worth his salt should prioritize real, quantifiable threats over imaginary ones. Of the real threats, data leakage prevention is probably the biggest sector that comes to mind. Dealing with lost sensitive corporate data is a real security problem that requires real technology to handle. The present problems may not be as sexy as computer viruses, but they are problems that do need to be solved.