A new form of tech developed by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers is simple but effective.
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have now come up with a new form of mobile security protection that uses certain simple but highly effective techniques that are able to stop sophisticated malware from sneaking their way into smartphones in order to attack them.
The development of this type of protection against mobile malware has become vitally important.
As well over half of all American adults now have smartphones, mobile security has become critical to providing protection against malware and other forms of cyber attack. While it is well recognized that computers such as laptops and desktops require this type of protection – typically in the form of firewalls and antivirus programs – many mobile device owners don’t realize how vulnerable their smartphones truly are. Moreover many of the apps that are available to protect devices take up too much space and require too much power.
This new mobile security technology has been developed to overcome those problems for improved protection.
The new form of mobile malware defense technology was revealed in St. Louis at the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications. As smartphones become more important and more commonplace, they have become prime targets to people who would seek to use them for malicious activities. This has caused an explosion in malware that can enter into mobile devices by way of any number of sources.
Primarily, this involves hidden malicious codes buried inside downloaded apps. Once they have been installed into mobile technology devices, there are various ways in which it can then exploit the gadget. This can include learning sensitive personal information about the user, taking over the camera to spy on the user, or even making premium rate phone calls without the user ever being aware that this is occurring.
It may even activate the NFC (near field communication technology) in the device for an entirely new form of mobile security problem – scanning for nearby credit cards that are NFC enabled for contactless payments. The researchers have come up with a way to more effectively block this type of digital invasion.
This lets Visa check to make sure that the customer and the card are in the same place when a purchase transaction is attempted on the card. This is done by checking the location of the customer’s mobile device. Should there ever be a mismatch, additional security measures will be taken in order to help to determine whether or not it is a legitimate purchase attempt, without necessarily cutting off the card, right away. This way, if a smartphone is left in a hotel room, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the customer will be without the use of his or her cards.