Hackers kept at bay by lack of a standard platform

Jessica Twentyman

Financial Times

15 February 2010

In this article the Financial Times looks at whether the dire predictions of a mobile malware epidemic are realistic, or if disaster may have been averted thanks to the many hurdles standing between hackers and the corporate smartphone.  PA Consulting Group’s Tom Carter, a mobile business specialist, commented on the mobile security threat and advises organisations on how they should view mobile devices. 

The article argues that companies need to prepare, Tom warns: “Mobile devices should always be viewed as suspicious. It is rarely pragmatic to expect a mobile phone to be a trusted citizen on a corporate local area network. The nature of the technology, along with how it is used, presents too many threats to be completely secure.” 

The article goes on to conclude that it is safer instead for IT organisations to think of the smartphone as a “low trust/low reliability” client to their network.