With the advent of mobile phones and the mobile space, there is a great opportunity for attackers to gain fraudulently. The mobile phone space is growing exponentially and this is attractive to the attackers who are looking for platforms which are paying. The internet has catapulted the attacks so that they are using mobile phones to attack the users. This is the reason as to why mobile carrier should protect their users. Most attackers target the carriers to get their attacks to their users. There is therefore the need to ensure that the channels through which the attackers use to make attacks to the networks are as secure as possible.
One way in which attackers get to the users is through SMS. SMS, short for Short Message Service, is a popular method that attackers use to get to the users. With the advent of premium services that requires users to subscribe to them, this is changing the way that attackers get to the users. Attackers usually make use these services to send SMSs which seem standard only to realize that they are not so. Another way is that of subscribing to an expensive service without the user knowing it. There are some services which subscribe to users without the users knowing it. These attacks involve service that has been paid at some point such as the agreement for a mobile phone service. The key objective is charging extra fee to the account of the victim that are later transferred to the attacker’s account. Like normal computers, mobile devices are risk of being affected by viruses and worms. After their invasion, mobile devices will have been rendered unusable or might have been destroyed. There are costs linked to viruses and worms especially if they spread through services whose user has billed for each transfer such as the MMS. In regard to this, a worm which sends itself to numerous mobile devices will lead to a huge financial damage to the real owner of the infected mobile device.
The podcast is important and was useful as I learnt new ways in which attacks can be perpetrated. I had not imagined that overcharging is an example of attack. I always thought that this problem was as a result of carriers overcharging or an error in their systems.
Works Cited
Machlachlan, Gareth. Security firm targets mobile carriers Searchsecurity.com. 21 September 2011.
