U.S. security agencies - "Android mobile main target for malware".

Google Inc's Android, the dominant mobile operating system, is by far the primary target for malware attacks, mostly because many users are still using older versions of the software, according to a study by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Android was a target for 79 percent of all malware threats to mobile operating systems in 2012 with text messages representing about half of the malicious applications, according to the study from the government agencies, which was published by Public Intelligence website.

By comparison, about 19 percent of malware attacks were targeted at Nokia's Symbian system and less than 1 percent each at Apple Inc's iOS software, Microsoft Corp's Windows and BlackBerry Ltd.

Android continues to be a "primary target for malware attacks due to its market share and open source architecture," said the study, which was addressed to police, fire, emergency medical and security personnel.

source Reuters.com

Read More

Mobiquant Invited by Japan Government to Exhibit IT pro EXPO

 Mobiquant has been invited by Japan Governmen to exhibit at leading IT innovation event IT pro EXPO 2013 in Tokyo between 9-11 October 2013.Run by the Jetro (Japan External Trade Organization) and Japan Government, the event aims to accelerate Japanese economic growth by stimulating business-led innovation and opening up international trade opportunities.

The event will bring together over 60,000 people from Asia, international IT business, Government and academia. Mobiquant has been selected by the Japan External Trade Organization to exhibit at the event as one of the Mobile Security most innovative companies.

In 2007, Mobiquant was first company in the world to provide comprehensive solution for Mobile Security Management. For most innovated solutions Mobiquant was rewarded with many awards, including Frost & Sullivan European Technology Innovation Award for Mobile Security Management System.

Now, Mobiquant has been hand-picked to showcase some of its most innovative technologies and further embed the company reputation for mobile security business and technological solutions.

Reda Zitouni, Mobiquant's CEO: “We are really pleased that Mobiquant has been invited to exhibit at IT pro EXPO 2013. It’s a fantastic platform to demonstrate the company's ambition and commitment to security and innovation. It’s also a good opportunity to highlight our activity in Asian region."

Read More

Mozilla Releases First Two Firefox OS Smartphones

Mozilla released the first two smartphones to carry the new Firefox operating system today.  After early details were unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the new operating system began to generate serious buzz.  Mozilla partnered with Telefonica for the initial release.

ZTE and Alcatel provided the design for the first two phones to carry the new Firefox HTML open source OS, each sporting slim touchscreen designs and very affordable price points.  Both the ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire come standard with all of the normal smartphone amenities, including email, phone calls, text messaging, maps, camera (3.15 and 3.2 MP respectively), and naturally, Web browsing with Firefox.  Users can also download apps, although they may not get too far on the internal memory.  Fortunately, both phones have expandable MicroSD memory as well.

Neither phone exceeds 512 MB of internal memory, and neither has an HD screen, but the €69 (~$90) price point, which includes €30 of credit for pre-paid users, more than makes up for the lack of sizzle.  Both phones have highly respectable Adreno 200 graphics cards and 1 GHz Qualcomm processors.

The Firefox OS is an open-source system, intended to compete with Android for developer attention, and the experience is reportedly similar to using an Android device.  It was developed using HTML5, the language of the Web, which Mozilla hopes will make it easier for third party developers to produce apps.  With HTML5 integrated onto an open source operating system, there's definitely a possibility that Firefox could catch on with that crowd, although it remains to be seen if the software has the performance or longevity to make a splash.

Read More

Researchers find another Android attack that can get past signature checks

The vulnerability allows attackers to modify legitimate Android apps without breaking their digital signatures

A second vulnerability that can be exploited to modify Android apps without breaking their digital signatures has been identified and publicly documented.

Technical details about the vulnerability were published Wednesday by a security researcher in a Chinese language blog post.

The flaw is different from the so-called "masterkey" vulnerability, though both allows attackers to inject malicious code into digitally signed Android application packages (APKs) without breaking their signatures.

Android records the digital signature of an application when it is first installed and a sandbox is created for it. All subsequent updates for that application need to be cryptographically signed by the same author in order to verify that they haven't been tampered with.

Being able to modify legitimately signed apps means that attackers can trick users into installing fake updates for their already installed applications that would get access to all the potentially sensitive data stored by those applications. If the targeted applications are system apps, such as those pre-installed by device manufacturers, the malicious code in the rogue updates can even be executed with system privileges.

The new vulnerability allows attackers to inject code into particular files that exist in APKs, specifically in their headers, in a way that bypasses the signature verification process. The files that can be modified are called classes.dex, but in order for the attack to work, the size of the targeted files needs to be under 64KB, which somewhat limits the attack.

Read More

'Kill switch' on smartphones takes a step forward

Federal prosecutors want kill switches on smartphones as part of the Secure Our Smartphones initiative

A call by federal prosecutors for phone manufacturers to install a "kill switch" to discourage smartphone theft has taken a step forward, with Apple and Samsung providing handsets whose security features will be put to the test.

As part of the "Secure Our Smartphones" initiative announced by U.S. prosecutors and other groups in June, phone makers are being asked to find technological solutions to prevent smartphone theft. U.S. law enforcement is dealing with growing crime -- including murder -- related to smartphone theft, especially iPhones, and one of the ideas put forward was the installation of kill switches to disable smartphones completely.

As part of the SOS initiative, Apple will provide an iPhone 5 with the "Activation Lock" enabled, while Samsung will provide a Galaxy S4 smartphone with the LoJack for Android feature. The smartphones will be tested for security features and attempts will be made to circumvent the anti-theft features.

The prosecutors expect smartphones with kill switches to be released by early 2014, and discussions about the initiative have been held with Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft. The SOS initiative is also backed by state officials, police chiefs, district attorneys, attorneys general and consumer advocacy groups.

Apple's "Activation Lock" feature in iOS 7 requires an iPhone owner to enter a username and password to enable a locked or wiped phone. The feature is intended to make it difficult to resell a lost or stolen iPhone.

It is estimated that about 1.6 million people were victims of smartphone theft in the U.S. last year. Around 30% to 40% of all robberies are smartphone theft, according to the U.S. prosecutors.

Read More

BYOD - Bring your own disaster

According to the latest Mobiquant research BYOD is becoming a standard policy in a large number of companies. Although security of mobile devices is still a main problem for employers. Research confirms that BYOD is one of the main trends and challenges for entrepreneurs.

Companies wondering whether allow employees bring their own mobile devices to work can now stop asking that question. If proper security solution are applied, BYOD can give them an advantage over the competition by strengthening innovations and creativity in the workplace and reducing overall costs of an organization. Establishing cooperation with IT security partner who understands how important it is to provide proper security level for the whole network allows enterprises to gain benefits from BYOD process and protects them from drowning in the onslaught of information.

Primary feature of BYOD is a wide range of mobile devices, technologies and software what may cause problems with providing consistent and hermetic security system. Therefore, it is essential to introduce and implement an integrated security policy - at this point companies also have to control and monitor activity on mobile devices and prevent any internal information leakage.

From the point of view of an employer, data security should be a key feature of BYOD. Every organization decided to encourage employees to use private devices should take care of rational and functional security policy including:

• list of devices that use the company network along with assigned users and their user access level to the enterprise data
• data storage rules and the terms of downloading data on employees’ mobile devices
• procedures in case of a theft, loss and termination of the contract with an employee that will allow to erase company’s data from a mobile device
• terms and procedures for operating systems and software update
• requirements for password usage.

80% of enterprises allows their employees to use their private mobile devices for work. Over 50% of the companies reports cases of data theft and security breaches. What is more shocking, all cases are connected with access to the network from private mobile devices of employees.

Taking into account that over 50% of employees are using they private devices for work, Mobiquant Technology research shows that over a half of companies from Media, Technology and Telecommunication sectors are not investing enough resources in their mobile fleet security. BYOD policy is advantageous and can bring considerable gains but companies introducing this policy should remember that without tailor-made security procedures it can do more harm than good as far as data protection is concerned.

Read More

Mobiquant Invited by Japanese Government to Exhibit at IT pro EXPO

Read More

Mobiquant Invited by Japanese Government to Exhibit at IT pro EXPO

Read More