Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Simplicity: The Key to Effectively Securing Mobile Communications

From my article published on the Samsung Business Blog:
 
Whether you’re running a Fortune 500 company or a small business, managing financial transactions or treating patients, your mobile device is what you use to operationalize your life. The power is not just the mobile device itself, but also the mobile communications that the device enables.
 
There are millions of applications available to users across the myriad of “app stores” that exist for our devices. No matter how clever these applications, it still bears reiterating that the most important “killer app” on any smartphone remains interpersonal communications via phone calls and messaging.
 
Phone call, a killer application? Think about it. Phone calls are used for all types of conversations, including those too sensitive to put into writing. Most people assume that their calls are fleeting, and other than a time stamp, do not have a record. But any communication, whether data-driven or voice-based, is high in value to the adversaries who should not have access to it.
 
Jeremy Kroll, CEO of K2 Intelligence, puts it best: “The risks are quite high, as attacks in which cell phone calls are listened to and text messages are intercepted come from many sources, including competitive business espionage, organized crime and nation states around the world. While mobile communication exploits are amongst the fastest growing attacks, historically they are amongst the least defended.”