Goode Intelligence has announced that 54 percent of organisations surveyed in its 2009 Mobile Security Survey (Part Two) are planning to deploy mobile anti-virus products and services. Of these organisations, 33 percent plan to deploy mobile anti-virus products and services by March 2010 and the remaining 67 percent plan to deploy by September 2010.
The survey, carried out in partnership with Acumin Consulting during September 2009, is claimed to be the most comprehensive vendor-independent survey on mobile phone security to date, and provides a snapshot of the current state of mobile security within organisations across the globe.
"The threat from mobile viruses is currently low but with the rising adoption of data-centric applications on Smartphones, including financial services, we feel that the threat will rise from 2010 onwards" said Alan Goode, Managing Director, Goode Intelligence. "Research for the new GI Analyst Report on mobile viruses/malware has discovered that mobile operators are struggling with growing mobile spam and malware. In the last couple of years the percentage of mobile messaging traffic (SMS/MMS/Email) that is defined as spam or malware has risen from approximately two percent to between 20-30 percent of total traffic and more significantly, between 14-22 percent of this figure is considered to be malicious."
The survey reveals that while nearly 71 percent of organisations currently feel that the threat from mobile phone viruses is low, this number drops significantly for the perceived threat by 2011 with only 21 percent believing the risk to be low and 29 percent forecasting that the risk will be high or very high.
"The threat to mobile devices from viruses is here today and growing" said Alan Goode. "Last year's iPhone worms could be just the start of a concerted attack on Smartphones. The threat is increased by the proliferation of mobile app stores with users downloading applications, most of them free, to their Smartphones. Can the app store providers guarantee one hundred percent that their certification programs will capture all malicious code that may be lurking in a mobile application? This threat is dramatically increased if the user is running a jailbroken device. GI believes that companies must seriously consider the consequences of an unprotected corporate mobile phone being infected with malware that could upload all of that phone's data to a criminal server."
The survey is said to show that there are important challenges ahead for resourcing. Gemma Paterson, Marketing Manager, Acumin Consulting said "With 40 percent of organisations planning on recruiting for mobile security roles in the next two years it is reassuring to see that mSecurity is being taken seriously and becoming more of a priority for the IT and Security functions. It is essential to make organisations aware of this developing challenge and seeing as currently only 13 percent of organisations currently protect from mobile viruses, IT Security Managers will need to consider updating skill-sets and resourcing adequately for teams to ensure they are prepared for the risks arising from this transformation in the way we carry out business."