How the mobile threat landscape is challenging companies’ ability to respond
As with cyber security generally, the mobile threat landscape is constantly evolving. So although businesses may have invested heavily in solutions like antivirus and mobile device and application management they can’t afford to relax.
Mobile security specialist Zimperium, the company that uncovered the recent LinkedIn flaw has released a whitepaper looking at the attack vectors that specifically target mobile devices.
The whitepaper highlights a number of attack vectors that specifically affect mobile devices. The main focus of these is network attacks and, as of today, existing solutions in the market do little to address these threats.
The market highlights Apps as one of the most dangerous threat vectors, with huge recent increases in mobile malware targeting Android likely to top the million mark by the end of the year. Although significant in volume, other types of attacks have the potential to cause significantly more impact to organizations.
Zuk Avraham, CEO and co-founder of Zimperium, says, "apps are seen as the most dangerous threat, but if you're sent one at random it's unlikely you're going to install it. Network threats, links or files like PDFs that hide malicious content are in fact more dangerous".
Enhancing network protection becomes more important as more companies adopt BYOD or CYOD policies. The mobile arena is still quite immature in terms of intrusion prevention systems and the report highlights the need for a robust solution to supplement first-generation protection technologies. It also points out that when it comes to advanced network threats both Android and iOS share the same risks.
For a more detailed look at the threat landscape you can download the whitepaper from the Zimperium website. You can also check out the company's ZANTI mobile penetration testing toolkit.
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