Is Your Smartphone Secure?

Some years back you would have read the news of Paris Hilton's phone being hacked and all contents from the phone, which included contact details of several A-list celebrities along with some of her pictures, were posted on the Internet. Today, if your phone's hacked or stolen, you would worry for your contacts and other data in the form of emails, mobile banking details and corporate data. Over a period of time, the mobile phone has transformed into a multi-functional device. Its usage is not just limited to making calls, but it's your multimedia device through which you can access Internet, listen to songs, play games, etc. It's also your office on the go as you can respond to email communications anytime, anywhere and do online banking as well. But ever thought of the repercussions you might face if it gets stolen and lands up in the hands of somebody with malicious intentions, or if there's a Trojan in your phone? Let's look in detail.

Trojan threats

With the increase in features and usefulness, the security threats have also increased. Somebody can trace each and every moment of yours, your contacts, messages, mail and even passwords and you would not even come to know about this. Many companies allow their employees to access their mail server through mobiles. These emails may contain important information, which should not be revealed. In such scenarios it is very important to secure your mobile from external threats.

Recently Trend Micro researchers have detected a Zeus Trojan that is specifically designed for BlackBerry operating system. This Trojan has the capability to lay dormant for long periods until the user of the infected device accesses his banking accounts. The Zeus Trojan then collects passwords and authentication codes and sends them to an attacker. It also allows the BlackBerry devices to be controlled remotely by the attacker, who can add himself as device administrator and change settings for SMS message default number or control the black-listed

numbers.

There are many ways that your mobile can get infected. One of them is social media. Many of us use social media in one way or the other. Uploading images, updating status, geo-tagging and posting links are some of the things that we do from our hand held devices, which in most cases is mobile. But these can be harmful, since the link posted can be phishing links and may contain fake log-in pages. You may end up revealing your ID and passwords of your bank account. Also with geo-tagging you are actually revealing your location. The attackers are looking for this information to place Trojans onto your phones to steal your information and then they are the ones who control your device, not you. So you need to be very careful while clicking a link or downloading an application, even if your friend has posted it or recommended it because you and or your friend may not even come to know that your mobile is being tracked without your permission.

The major security solution providers like Trend Micro and McAfee have started providing security solution for mobile devices as well. The solution includes anti-virus and threat monitoring solutions and are available for different mobile platforms like iPhones or Androids.

Threats from a lost phone

There's always a chance of losing the mobile phone and if we talk about current scenarios, mobile phones are devices which contain important information. So in case of theft, you may end up losing your data. The person who has your mobile can access all information. It is more like an identity theft, since your mobile contains all contacts and emails and other important data and the thief can use them against you.

And in a corporate scenario, you cannot afford to have such a situation where your competitor knows about your confidential data through a phone that was stolen from one of your executives. You need to have security solutions in place to monitor devices that access corporate data, which can range from emails to business applications having mobile interfaces as well. Having such theft monitoring software will ensure that even if your employee loses the phone you are able to erase all confidential data from the phone remotely.

McAfee WaveSecure is one such complete mobile security service for Android mobiles that lets users protect their data, ensure privacy in the event of theft and enhances the possibility of recovering the phone. In case the user loses his phone, he can remotely lock down the device and wipe out data also to protect privacy, and even if the SIM is changed, the WaveSecure app locks down the device and a message is sent to added buddies who get to know that the user's phone is lost. All it needs is an active Internet connection to send the message and get instructions from the server for data wipeout in situations when the user loses his phone. When used with WaveSecure Uninstall Protection Add-on (UPA), it ensures that both apps watch other. Which means if you uninstall WaveSecure UPA, the main WaveSecure app locks. And if you remove the WaveSecure app, UPA kicks in to secure the device.

To install these applications you can install them from the Android Market. The WaveSecure app is available for free trial for a period of 7 days, and can be purchased at USD 19.90. While the WaveSecure UPA app is freely available, provided that you have WaveSecure app already installed on the Android device. In the following steps we show how the app is setup and its salient features.

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