Smartphones provide an efficient and convenient platform to access, find, and share information across the globe; nonetheless, the presence of this information has caused eyebrows due to an upsurge of cyber-attacks. At the moment, cyber threats include Trojans, viruses, botnets, and toolkits. Currently, 95% of smartphones lacks pre-installed security software. The absence of security provides an opportunity to cyber attackers to hack popular devices including Androids, iPhone and Blackberry. The traditional security software installed in personal computers (PCs), like firewalls, antivirus and encryption lacks in mobile devices. Furthermore, the level of vulnerability has increased because most people are using their mobile devices for personal tasks. Mobile devices allow user to send and receive email, access social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), download and buy various applications. In addition, mobile device users can perform monetary transactions via phone, and this attracts cyber attackers. With smartphones, an individual can buy goods; redeem coupons and tickets, bank, as well as process point-of-sale payments. Inopportunely, use of mobile devices for personal transactions is the loopholes cyber attackers utilize to access personal and private data. Therefore, this paper shall candidly and comprehensively elucidate on the effects of mobile devices on cyber security. Also, the paper will suggest the need to develop a national security policy to protect sensitive and personal data for mobile devices.
Smartphones operating systems are not regularly updated compared to their PC counterparts. Cyber attackers take advantage of this flaw in security to hack or alter personal data in the mobile devices. For instance, Cyber attackers build on the insecurity of mobile devices in the 2011 Valentine’s Day attack. Cyber-attackers circulated a mobile picture-sharing application that secretly sent premium-rate text messages from a user’s mobile device. Such an example demonstrates the importance of coming up with a security policy for mobile devices. Also, the attackers hack personal information inclusive of private pictures and images and use this as a bait of monetary gains from the owners of the personal information (Wright et.al, 2012). In most instances, they threaten to cause conflicts in place of work, marriages and relationships. The accessibility of mobile devices in performing personal tasks provided a dais for cyber attackers to victimize mobile users.
Smartphones mobile devices are capable of performing various tasks that increase the susceptibility of mobile devices. Users can send and receive emails, store contact information, passwords and a bunch of highly sensitive data. Besides, they are a preference to many for purposes of social networking. It is possible to downloading social networking applications and uses it for communication and fun. The most popular social networking site includes Facebook, Google+, Twitter and MySpace. The unsuspecting users take advantage of accessing personal data from the sites. The cyber attackers have malicious software applications that can access and steal personal data. In addition, the popularity of M-Commerce has placed money transactions via phone under siege. With smartphones, an individual can buy goods; redeem coupons and tickets, access banking services as well as process point-of-sale payments. Though mobile devices abilities are convenient to the users, cyber attackers are malicious and take advantage of the situation (Oltsik, 2014). It should be noted that, the development of cyber security software premeditated for smartphones operating systems have increased the prevalence of cyber threats.
The effects of cyber-attacks on mobile devices can just be harmful or even more harmful than attack on a personal computer. For a long duration, phones utilize the browser to operate prompting the increase of web-based attacks on a daily basis. The IT professionals, engineers and computer scientists must devise ways that will prevent cyber-attacks on smartphones. The best approach is to incorporate security associated with PCs to the mobile devices. Moreover, the screen size of mobile devices is small causing a nightmare to the users. The web address bars pop out in a short duration because the size of the screen is small. Users must check the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the website to ensure that the websites they are accessing are legitimate. The challenges presented by the mobile phone browser is a security gap that needs to be addressed in due time (Smith, 2012). Increased cyber security and mobile threats is a clear indicator for the need of antivirus applications to mobile devices. Cyber attackers can easily implant an attack to the mobile devices that are not protected. For instance, an attacker can develop attractive display content to hide a malicious link beneath a legitimate image. Unluckily, when the user is tempted to click the image on the advertisements, they are redirected to the malicious content by the link.
Most of the mobile devices companies have failed in providing security to their phones. Over the decades, Apple Inc. is the only corporation that tries to protect its products from malware attacks. They have developed techniques to boost security that ensures that user applications are not compromised by cyber threats. Compared to Android’s OS, iOS, Apple utilizes the “sandbox mechanism” to prevent third parties from retrieving external data. The mechanism provides a strategy that denies access to specific features of the devices and mobile data (Oltsik, 2014). Furthermore, the developers utilize Application Programming Interface (APIs) to prevent malicious attacks by cyber terrorists. As a final point, Apple must approve any iOS application created. In reality, “the company employs both automated and manual verification of submitted apps.” After approving the potential application, it officially releases it to the App Store, a threat free site where users can download applications without fear of attacks. Apple decides whether an application will be available at the App Store to scare the cyber attackers from implanting attacks.
The upsurge of cyber threats is at an alarming rate. Symantec claims that the presence of polymorphisms and toolkits led to an increase in malware programs in 2011. To date, more than 250 million malicious programs have been created. Cyber attackers work to ensure they establish security gaps to interfere with personal tasks and functions in the mobile devices. Botnet is a malware program that has increased the probability of causing havoc to the smartphones. Statistics indicates an increase in cyber threat towards bank and credit card information. The hacked personal credit card data helps the cyber attackers to transfer money to their accounts by stealing the information through extensive botnet attacks (McKinnon, 2012).Mobile devices are at a high risk of cyber threats since they are not protected from malicious programs used by attackers. Necessary steps must be put in place to guarantee the security when using mobile devices to scare away the malicious cyber attackers.
Mobile devices have also contributed significantly towards the social media security breach. Various social media sites not only provide the hacker with user’s personal information, but also their whereabouts at any particular time. Some of the sites even provide the information of the places visited by the users. For instance, one of the social media site, Foursquare provides a “check in” technology that gives the user's information related to places they have visited such as school, hospital, and movie theatre among others (UTICA College, 2014). Due to the portability of the mobile devices the users can use them in any place at any given period. As a result, this enhances the applicability of the tracking technology such as “check in” in the Foursquare social media network. Subsequently, the indicator that the user is far from home subjects them to be more vulnerable of them insecurity.
Therefore, as the mobile devices technology is continuously taking the new and innovative face, the mobile cyber security threats are continuously emerging. The research indicates that the in the contemporary world more than 45 percent of the mobile devices owners have smartphones. As a result, this enables users to hold more data with these smartphones than with the traditional smartphones. In this case, every additional smartphone, or tablet serves a marginal opportunity for the cybercrimes by facilitating more accessibility of personal data (Pierskalla et al., 2013). The modern mobile devices share the same USB making it easier to be plugged in any computer or charging device. Consequently, this contributes to the rise of malware issues for many different devices.
In conclusion, the mobile devices have exponentially evolved from the first phones that could last for 1 hour of talk time to Apple iPhone six that offers internet access and unlimited apps. The mobile devices have currently been used more commonly than the personal computers due to the added technology and the ability to travel with them in any place. However, this portability of mobile devices has subjected the users into a greater risk of life safety since mobile phones are becoming more vulnerable to cybercrimes as expounded above.
References
McKinnon, A. D. (2012). Bio-inspired cyber security for the smart grid. doi:10.1109/ISGT.2012.6175799
Smith, T. D. (2012). Cyber Security Emerging Trends and Threats for 2012. NYS Office of Cyber Security Monthly Security Tips - NEWSLETTER, 7(1).
Wright, J., Dawson, M. E., & Omar, M. (2012). Cyber Security and Mobile Threats: The Need for Antivirus Applications for Smart Phones. Journal of Information System Technology and Planning, 5(14), p. 40-50.
Pierskalla, J. H., & Hollenbach, F. M. (2013). Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa.American Political Science Review, 1-18. doi:10.1017/S0003055413000075
UTICA College. (2014). Ten Ways Evolving Technology Affects Cybersecurity | Utica College Online. Retrieved from http://programs.online.utica.edu/articles/ten-ways-evolving-technology-affects-cybersecurity-0321.asp
Oltsik, J. (2014, March 11). Has mobile computing had a positive impact on cybersecurity? | Network World. Retrieved from http://www.networkworld.com/article/2226505/cisco-subnet/has-mobile-computing-had-a-positive-impact-on-cybersecurity-.html
