Mobile Device Security: Challenges and Solutions

This report discusses the concept of mobile device security, including the challenges faced and the different types of malware activities. It also explores the approaches for ensuring proper mobile security and the emerging technology for malware detection. The report emphasizes the need for implementing technology to enhance the security of mobile applications.

Running head: NETWORK INFORMATION AND SECURITY
ITNE2002
NETWORK AND INFORMATION SECURITY ASSIGNMENT 2
MOBILE DEVICE / SMART PHONE SECURITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
About Mobile/Smart phone security................................................................................................2
Challenges faced with smart phone security...............................................................................2
Different malware activities............................................................................................................5
Approach for ensuring proper mobile security................................................................................5
Emerging mobile malware detection technology............................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The report aims at describing the concept associated with mobile device security. With
the growing technology and advancement it is observed that the evolution of technology has
helped in connecting with the people effectively. Smart phone is one of the devices that help in
easily connecting with people. This offers a wide range of features for the purpose of connecting
with people all over the world. The main focus of this report is to discuss the security concept
that arises with the use of mobile devices. The main reason behind having proper security within
the smart phone is that it includes protecting portable such as tablets, smart watches and phones
from the cyber threats (Chen et al. 2016). The need of having proper security measure is that a
lot of sensitive data are being stored within the phone, thus it becomes essential to ensure proper
safety towards the data stored. The report will describe this concept in details.
About Mobile/Smart phone security
Mobile security is referred to the concept of providing proper safety and privacy towards
the data stored within the device. With the growing need of population it has been observed that
need of having a smart phone has also increased. This helps in easy transmission of data and also
helps in performing the communication effectively without any issue. Nowadays everyone owns
a smart phone and has made it an essential part of life (He, Chan and Guizani 2015). Thus it
becomes important to ensure that proper security is maintained throughout device so that no data
can be stolen from the device.

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Challenges faced with smart phone security
The major challenges that are faced with the smart phone security is that the threat that
are likely to impact the operations of smart phone and the data transmitted by them. Thus it
becomes essential to ensure that proper integrity and privacy is offered towards the data stored
within the device. Thus in order to maintain proper performance of the device it becomes
essential to ensure that the device is not affected by any malware. The main targets of attackers
are data, identity and availability associated with the smart phone (Holt et al., 2018). The data
stored within the device are crucial and hence it needs to be protected effectively so that it does
not hamper the user. It is observed that the user tends to store confidential data like card
numbers, private information and activity details within the device for the purpose of easy
access. However whenever an attacker gets into device the main motive of the attacker is to
hamper steal those data so that it can be used by them for threatening the users. The different
types of threats that are likely to impact the performance of the smart phones are stealing money,
invading the privacy and annoyance. The types of malicious attacks are botnets, by introducing
malicious applications, spyware and sharing malicious links on social networking sites. These
are the ways through which the attacker gets into the device of the users. The consequences that
are likely to come with these attacks are that the attacker will get the opportunity to manipulate
the smart phone as a zombie machine. This will help the attackers to send commands for
communicating and will send unsolicited messages to hamper the performance. Moreover the
conversation that is made with the smart phone can be recorded and will be further used for the
purpose of tracking the details and will become a threat towards the users (Jiang, Ma and Wei
2018). Moreover the attacker gets the opportunity to steal someone else’s identity for the purpose

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of using their data too hamper the lives of users. The main risks associated with mobile are
described below:
Weak control on server side:
Whenever a user communicates with the mobile phone than there is a involvement if
server. Thus it becomes the main target for the hackers to exploit the data stored within the
system. Thus it is observed that the attackers tends to gain control over the system for the
purpose of halving the device and to disrupt the communication.
Ineffective data storage:
One more major concern that arises with the application of smart phone is that the lack of
security that is provided towards the data storage. This leads to impacting the data stored within
the system. Thus it becomes essential to offer better security so that it can ensure better safety
towards the data stored.
Physical threats:
This are one of the major challenges that are faced with the mobile phones that leads to
loss of data that is stored within the device (Kearns 2016). The attacker tries to achieve the
physical access of a device than they will be able to perform malicious activities. These activities
are performed for the purpose of harming the users.
Network based threats:
Mostly it is observed that maximum people uses wireless network interfaces for the
purpose of connectivity. The different types of wireless network interfaces are Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth (Liyanage et al. 2016). Thus there are several vulnerabilities that come along with the

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use of this wireless technology. These possess the ability to harm the devices for the purpose of
stealing important data.
Different malware activities
The different types of malware activities that are performed by the attackers on the mobile
phone are described below:
 Data theft: the main purpose behind data theft is to gain the details of users regarding the
accounts, contacts and call logs. As soon as the attacker gets into the device of users than
they get the ability to access the emails and to steal information from there. Moreover the
attacker will have the ability to steal the data that are stored within the phone number.
 Surveillance: this mainly aims at getting access over location of the user so that they can
harm the user physically. Moreover with this type of malware activities the user also gets
access over audio, camera and messages. This has the potential to hamper the life of users
physically.
 Impersonation: this is referred to the ability of users to hack the social media and posting
unnecessary messages, sending fraud mails to other parties for the purpose of gaining the
control over data.
 Botnet activities: this are basically referred to the activities that are being performed by
the attackers by launching DDOS attack and sending premium messages for the purpose
of attacking the system.

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Approach for ensuring proper mobile security
The different approaches that are being used for the purpose of ensuring proper mobile
security are education, protection, understanding, detection and response.
 Understanding: this will help in monitoring the activities that are taking place within a
mobile device and will keep the users updated about the new threats so that they can have
better control over the activities that takes place within the system.
 Protection: this is one of the key components that mainly focuses on mobile security and
covers the main aspects related to security. The first concern is associated with
preventing the unwanted threats from entering into the mobile system.
 Detection: the detection methodology that is used for determining the performance of
mobile phone is to monitor and picking up anomalous system activities (Roman, Lopez
and Mambo 2018). As soon as the anomaly is detected in the system alters are generated
so that proper application can be launched in order to protect the system from further
attacks.
 Response: incident response is considered to be one of the important aspects that help in
ensuring better security within the mobile application. Whenever a incident takes place
within the system that the incident response team starts it technical investigation so that it
can ensure better solution towards the system.
 Education: it becomes important to ensure that everyone are educated about the attacks
that are taking place within the society so that they can have better precaution strategy for
the purpose of protecting the system.

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Emerging mobile malware detection technology
After analyzing the threats associated with mobile it is observed that the DSTA has
continuously exploring solution so that they can ensure better enhanced solution for protecting
the devices from security issues and cyber security. The main aim of this integrated system is too
offer a combined result that will be able to detect the errors at backend and will be able to
implement different detection techniques for the purpose of assessing the applications. The
integrated system will start its function once the user submits the application than it will be
scanned by different detection engine (Dsta.gov.sg, 2019). The result will be processed towards
the result analyzer from which the final verdict will share it towards the malicious detectors. The
process will ensure proper working of the system so that it can have better control over the
device.
Conclusion
Thus from the above report it can be concluded that the there is a high need to implement
proper technology that will be able to ensure proper protection towards the mobile application.
The report has described the threats that are associated with the smart phones. In addition to this
the report has also described the emerging technology that has been implemented for the purpose
of enhancing the security towards the smart phones.

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References
Chen, M., Qian, Y., Mao, S., Tang, W. and Yang, X., 2016. Software-defined mobile networks
security. Mobile Networks and Applications, 21(5), pp.729-743.
Dsta.gov.sg. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.dsta.gov.sg/docs/default-source/dsta-
about/challenges-in-mobile-security.pdf?sfvrsn=2 [Accessed 11 May 2019].
He, D., Chan, S. and Guizani, M., 2015. Mobile application security: malware threats and
defenses. IEEE Wireless Communications, 22(1), pp.138-144.
Holt, T.J., van Wilsem, J., van de Weijer, S. and Leukfeldt, R., 2018. Testing an Integrated Self-
Control and Routine Activities Framework to Examine Malware Infection Victimization. Social
Science Computer Review, p.0894439318805067.
Jiang, Q., Ma, J. and Wei, F., 2018. On the security of a privacy-aware authentication scheme for
distributed mobile cloud computing services. IEEE systems journal, 12(2), pp.2039-2042.
Kearns, G.S., 2016. Countering mobile device threats: A mobile device security model. Journal
of Forensic & Investigative Accounting, 8(1), pp.36-48.
Liyanage, M., Abro, A.B., Ylianttila, M. and Gurtov, A., 2016. Opportunities and challenges of
software-defined mobile networks in network security. IEEE Security & Privacy, 14(4), pp.34-
44.
Roman, R., Lopez, J. and Mambo, M., 2018. Mobile edge computing, fog et al.: A survey and
analysis of security threats and challenges. Future Generation Computer Systems, 78, pp.680-
698.