The usage of mobile phones and mobile applications contribute a lot to the growth of the app economy and has driven many users to globally use the mobile application. This has increased the insight of the investors, brands, agencies and application developers are gaining global opportunity and are receiving more funds from the global market.But the security executives and officials often blamed that the emerging and existing threats were not addressed properly because of the lack of proper budget allocation for the security system.
Protection of information
Computer security is the protection of the data and information from damage or theft of the hardware, software and information on them. And it is also the protection of the information from the misdirection and disruption of the service they provide. The is also known as Information security or cyber security and it is the act of defending the information and data from the unauthorized access, modification, destruction, inspection, disclosure, use or recording.
There are mobile apps for everything, and since theses apps run on the user’s mobile devices- they contain certain information about the user. Depending on the mobile application, the information regarding the customer might differ, for example- a utility or entertainment mobile app might consist of the basic information of the consumer like the name, contact number and address; while the banking or financial apps might consist the account details, credit card information and other financial information about the consumer.
The mobile devices and mobile applications are prone to security breaches and malicious attacks. And all the mobile users and app owners fear about the risk associated with the mobile application and technology.
Cyber attacks and vulnerabilities
The cyber attackers and hackers attack the mobile application and mobile devices by different ways based on the software application, communication, hardware and malicious software.
The mobile phone users are subjected to different threats while accessing their mobile devices and these threats disturb the operation of the mobile devices and changes or transmit the user data, hence the mobile applications must guarantee the integrity and privacy of the information they handle. In some cases, the apps themselves are a malware and it limits the functionalities of the mobile devices like the like the prevention of data transmission over the network, SMS messages, restricting the apps from accessing the GPS device to know the location details and blocking the address book.
The hackers look out for three main targets to attack the mobile devices and trap the user information.
Availability: Attacking a mobile device will limit the access for the users and deprive the users from accessing the functionalities of the device.
Data: The mobile devices are used for data management and it consist of several sensitive data like the authentication information, activity logs, credit card numbers and private information.
Identity: The unique feature of the mobile phones is that they are customizable, thus the contents and the device are closely associated to the device user. For instance, the mobile device can give the information related to the device user, like the contact details with which the hacker can commit to offensive crimes.
Consequences of cyber attack
When a mobile device is attacked by the hacker, the cyber attackers can commit to several things, like
- The hacker can easily access the mobile device to make phone calls, for example- a person can collect the contact number from any sources like the yellow pages by using the PhoneMakeCall by Microsoft or the Application interface to call others. And using this service, the hackers can call the paid services like the emergency service which might disorganize those services.
- The cyber attackers can manipulate the mobile phone into a zombie device, so that the hacker can use the device to communicate and send them as spam messages and emails.
- The hackers can access the personal data like the music, video and photos or professional information like calendars, notes and contacts of the device owners.
- The user’s identity can be stolen by the hackers and usurp the identity and impersonate the device user. And it will lead to a chaos in the countries where the mobile devices are used to place the law orders, used as identification cards or to access the bank accounts.
- Some advanced mobile devices can record the conversation between the users and send them to the third party, and it might lead to industrial security and user privacy issues.
- The cyber hackers can reduce the utility of the mobile devices by discharging the battery by running an application that will run on the processor and thereby draining out the battery of the mobile device. This is a form of attack called the sleep depriving torture or battery exhaustion.
- The hackers can prevent the access of the mobile devices or prevent the functionalities of the device and gradually it becomes unstable. This process can erase the boot scripts and so the device will not have a functioning operating system or at times, some of the files or documents are modified to make the device unstable.
Increased investments in security service
After knowing the importance of security and protection of information, the technology and application development companies and other agencies have taken steps to spend a quality amount of funds on the security system.
On account of this, many companies and business organizations around the world have spent more than seventy three billion dollars on the security system of the mobile technology and the revenue spent on the security is more than the amount spent over the overall information technology spending in the past few years.
Most of the investments in this year will be based on the security services and about forty five percent of the investments in the cyber security is will be handled by the integration, security services consulting and services related to it. According to the IDC’s report in 2016, the security service segment managed alone can generate thirteen billion dollars and the private and public sectors will spend more on the access and identity management software, endpoint protection tools, software products and vulnerability management products and spending on these tools accounts to seventy five percent of the security software. With the significance of security, the Board of Directors has decided that the budget allocated for the security will be used effectively and wisely.
The analyst companies and experts are suggesting that the revenue spent on the security will keep increasing and the consulting and information technology outsourcing is the 2 main areas in which the companies are focusing and are spending on the security. This readiness by the companies to spend on the security system will decrease the constraints related to the security issues posted by the executives.
A recent estimation rate released by the IDC suggests that the annual rate will rise to 8.3% and will reach to one hundred and one billion dollars by 2020 and the highest rate of growth will come from information technology outsourcing, technology to prevent data loss and security testing.
The investment alone cannot protect the information from being hacked by the attackers, instead the developers and other agencies must employ talented and resourceful staffs to build a secured application that will retain the data from being hacked.