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Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Mobile malware: 'criminals are experimenting at the moment'

Mark Bridge writes:

This week’s podcast feature takes a fresh look at security on mobile phones. I’ve been talking to Eddy Willems, Security Evangelist at G Data, about the challenges and solutions facing smartphone users. Both Eddy and his current employer have been active in digital security for a couple of decades, so there’s plenty of experience under their respective belts.

I started by asking whether security was a big deal for mobile phones.

“Well, it is becoming a big deal for mobile phones”, Eddy replied. He went on to cite recent G Data research that showed how the share of malware aimed at smartphones and tablets had risen by 273% in the first half of 2011 when compared to the first half of 2010.

Unsurprisingly, Windows PCs are still the biggest target, with just a tiny percentage of mobile devices becoming infected with viruses and similar security threats. But that tiny percentage is growing. “It’s just on the edge at this moment. 2012 will definitely be the bigger target and we definitely will see real infections of real malware coming to all of us.”

The popularity and the ‘openness’ of Android are causing it to be targeted by cyber-criminals. “They are looking for the biggest market share… because they want to gain money out of it. That’s also the real reason why the Windows platform was targeted and is still targeted.”

Criminals are looking for information that’s stored on your phone, Eddy warned. “A lot of us are keeping passwords on mobile phones in some kind of document because it’s easy, so that’s one of the things that is very interesting for the cyber-criminal”.

We went on to talk about the misconceptions people have when it comes to mobile security, the ways that consumers can stay safe from mobile viruses and other malware, additional actions the mobile industry should be taking - and the security differences between Android and Apple’s iOS.

Finally, I asked Eddy to predict the future of mobile security over the next year or two.

“At this moment cyber-criminals are experimenting a little bit on the Android platform, trying to find out what they easily can do. We will have a very big increase in mobile malware - definitely for Android - because it’s becoming widely used. At this moment we see a lot of ‘Trojans’, malicious apps. We think this could be changed and maybe we’ll see something like small botnets and more spyware coming to mobile phones.”

It’s important to keep the scale of mobile malware in perspective - it’s the conventional desktop or laptop computer that’s targeted in the vast majority of cases - but the amount of threats and the the number of mobile devices affected are certainly very much on the increase.

Hear Eddy Willems explain how to protect a smartphone from security threats - and much more, too. You can listen to the full interview with Eddy on our website, via iTunes or by downloading the MP3 file.
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