With the explosion in Indian mobile industry, the mobile devices are prone to various forms of threat. This not only affects consumers financially but also exposes their personal data, videos and official presentations for misuse. Significant increases in shipments of smart phones, as well as increasing market penetration, have made mobile devices much more attractive targets for hackers. The newest and most intriguing market opportunity for mobile security is the growth of mobile device security managed services.

There are many facets of mobile security, including Intellectual Property Rights issues in India. The privacy of a person is violated when a telephone or communication device ceases to be a secure telephone due to external factors and without the owner’s knowledge or consent. One such method where the privacy is violated is the use of technique of mobile cloning.

While malware targeting mobile devices is a relatively recent problem, their dissemination is commonly made via MMS, SMS, e-mail, instant messaging, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology. The mobile malware threat has been growing steadily over the past few months and more users are now looking to secure confidential data against potential attacks at all endpoints.

In India, close to Rs 500 crore worth of mobile phones are lost or stolen annually. To compound matters, it is next to impossible for general consumers to locate or retrieve their stolen handsets. Thus, a secure telephone is the basic perquisite to ensure the right of privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. There can be no secure telephone unless a telephone provides voice security through end-to-end encryption of the telephone call. In some cases, it also provides a mutual authentication of calling parties, protecting them against a man in the middle attack. The frequent telephone tapping incidents all over world is raising a growing demand for secure telephones so that right to privacy can be protected in its true letter and spirit.

According to telecom market experts, there have been close to thirty different types of attack on mobile devices within the past two years. Today, consumers are much more price-sensitive than commercial customers and they are less knowledgeable about the threat malware presents to mobile devices. As their use of smart phones increases over the next two years though, consumers will also become targets for managed security services. Forecast suggests that the mobile device security managed services market will increase in size from around $100 million in 2006 to well over $500 million in 2011.

The best way to defend mobile platforms is to create awareness and have a comprehensive security policy. Most mobile users store their PINs (Personal Identification Numbers), passwords, e-mail and other critical information, both personal and professional in their mobile devices such as smartphones, PDAs, laptops and USB drives. Some of the key threats can be due to theft, loss, malicious software or hacking. As a result, a lost PDA or smartphone with no protection makes easy pickings for thieves, hackers or competitors with regard to corporate information.

Though virus attacks are unpredictable, several incidents have drawn attention to and created greater awareness around wireless threats. The best way to have a secure wireless work environment is by adopting a detailed set of best practices like establishing and enforcing laptop security and creating an awareness programme, implementing timely, automatic updates, being careful while accepting files via Bluetooth, and if the phone gets infected, turning off Bluetooth, so that the malware does not find new targets.