Mobile Security

Literature Review

Mobile security, or more specifically mobile device security, has become increasingly important in mobile computing. Of particular concern is the security of personal and business information now stored on smartphones. More and more users and businesses use smartphones to communicate, but also to plan and organize their users” work and also private life. Within companies, these technologies are causing profound changes in the organization of information systems and therefore they have become the source of new risks. Indeed, smartphones collect and compile an increasing amount of sensitive information to which access must be controlled to protect the privacy of the user and the intellectual property of the company. All smartphones, as computers, are preferred targets of attacks. These attacks exploit weaknesses inherent in smartphones that can come from the communication mode—like Short Message Service (SMS, aka text messaging), Multimedia Messaging Service ) (wifi, Bluetooth and GSM), the global standard for mobile communications.

There are also exploits that target software vulnerabilities in the browser or operating system. And some malicious software relies on the weak knowledge of an average user. According to a finding by McAfee in 2008, 11.6% users had heard of someone else being affected by mobile malware, but only 2.1% had personal experience on such problem. However, this number is expected to grow Security countermeasures are being developed and applied to smartphones, from security in different layers of software to the dissemination of information to end users.

Literature Summary Review

Mobile devices often do not have passwords enabled. Mobile devices often lack passwords to authenticate users and control access to data stored on the devices. Many devices have the technical capability to support passwords, personal identification numbers (PIN), or pattern screen locks for authentication. Some mobile devices also include a biometric reader to scan a fingerprint for authentication. However, anecdotal information indicates that consumers seldom employ these mechanisms. Additionally, if users do use a password or PIN they often choose passwords or PINs that can be easily determined or bypassed, such as 1234 or 0000. Without passwords or PINs to lock the device, there is increased risk that stolen or lost phones” information could be accessed by unauthorized users who could view sensitive information and misuse mobile devices.

Future Research

1. 1. Security in operating systems

The first layer of security in a smartphone is the operating system (OS). Beyond needing to handle the usual roles of an operating system (e.g. resource management, scheduling processes) on the device, it must also establish the protocols for introducing external applications and data without introducing risk.

File permission

From the legacy linux, there are also file system permission mechanisms, they help with sandboxing; a process cannot edit any file it wants. It is therefore not possible to change the permissions of files installed on the SD card from the phone and consequently it is impossible to install applications

1. 1. Security software

Above the operating system security, there is a layer of security software. This layer is composed of individual components to strengthen various vulnerabilities: prevent malware, intrusions, the identification of a user as a human, and user authentication Anti virus and Firewalll An antivirus software can be deployed on a device to verify that it is not affected by a know threat usually by signature detection software that detects malicious executable file. A firewall, main while can also watch over the existing traffick on the network and ensure that a malicious application does not seek to communicate through it.

Conclusion

Furthermore, it can be noted that it is common to find that updates exist, or can be developed, but this is not always done. One can, for example, find a user who does not know that there is a newer version of the operating system compatible with the smartphone, or a user may discover known vulnerabilities that are not corrected until the end of a long development cycle, which will allows time to exploit the loopholes.