MWC: Mobile threats cross borders

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, mobile security companies including AdaptiveMobile, Verizon, PCCW, Syniverse and PhonepayPlus called for a greater collaboration across the industry to tackle the rising number of mobile threats crossing international and technology borders.

Attendees at the Mobile World Congress Mobile Security Forum unilaterally agreed the need for greater collaboration and stronger measures to combat mobile attacks which no longer respect international boundaries, including malware, spam and viruses.

During the session, AdaptiveMobile gave concrete examples of the sophisticated nature of the threats facing borderless networks today, captured in the launch of its seventh Global Security Insights in Mobile (GSIM) report available immediately for download.

‚”Modern mobile threats have no regard for international or technology borders,‚” says Brian Collins, CEO, AdaptiveMobile. ‚”We have seen the rise of a new generation of sophisticated, persistent attacks launched across multiple vectors and aimed at multiple countries. The need for greater collaboration between regulators, security bodies, operators and public sector organisations to tackle these issues is clear.‚”

At the forum, over 250 attendees listened to speakers discuss the latest generation of challenges facing mobile operators and users. PhonepayPlus announced its strategy for developing effective partnerships with stakeholders, processes for intelligence-gathering and enforcement action, as well as the launch of a scenario workshop to test malware attack scenarios, taking definitive action against these problems.

The Mobile Security Forum also highlighted the findings of AdaptiveMobile’s latest GSIM report (GSIM VII). The report outlines how criminals are increasingly taking advantage of the open nature of modern mobile networks to design new scams and threats. AdaptiveMobile has seen a number of threats that target multiple regions, including a US company promoting a battery charger app in 12 countries across every continent, which tricked users into upgrading to a premium rate service which then charged users a significant fee every two weeks. The report also includes a checklist for operators who are rolling out LTE, and considering RCS, to help ensure that existing borderless threats do not exploit their investments in LTE.

‚”We’ve seen a huge amount of customer complaints around some of the recent scams which are almost impossible to trace across different networks and bearers,‚” concludes Collins. ‚”As the modern telecoms network continues to become increasingly complex, operators need to ensure that they have network-based protection securing every service bearer as well as the handset. By providing targeted security against a range of threats, operators can safeguard the technology landscape, reduce churn, increase revenue and neutralise threats to their own network infrastructure. Whilst technology to combat these threats is clearly part of the solution the industry also needs to consider how intelligence on the people behind the threats, and not just technical information on the threats, can best be shared particularly when a threat spans several jurisdictions.‚”