These applications and a failure to incorporate inbuilt protection is increasing risk exposure.
Among the primary struggles that have been faced by mobile security, so far, has been the vulnerabilities and risks that are added by the vast number of cheap applications and the low degree of protection that have been built into some of the largest app store environments.
Primary among these has been the Android environment, though this could soon be changing.
Google could be adding a serious new layer to mobile security by securing its Android environment, which could be coming somewhat soon. According to the Webroot CMO, David Duncan, there is a serious change coming to the industry and this will occur primarily when Google starts to provide added protection to its own app environment.
This application of Google’s increase in mobile security for Android could turn MDM on its head.
Though the sector for mobile device management (MDM) is only just getting started, the CMO of the cloud security company, Webroot, has said that this sector is on borrowed time. The moment that Android boosts its overall security will be a massively defining one for MDM. Many in the industry are already wondering how it will manage to stay afloat in the face of this type of a revolutionary change.
Before his move to Webroot, Duncan had previously been an NSA cryptologist. It is his belief that the primary question, at the moment, is whether Google will make a move that is similar to that of Microsoft about ten years ago, when it took its OS into one with a greater level of security. He explained that when Microsoft didn’t do very much for a very long period of time, including both the PC and the mobile sphere in terms of protecting the user against vulnerabilities.
He stated that this created a PC and mobile security environment in which “companies like Symantec and McAfee really grew up to solve the problems and inherent weaknesses in that platform — there are a slew of security vendors right now in a category called MDM that are designed to solve the security weaknesses built into that platform.” Now it is up to Google to decide how much longer they will allow this to continue in this way, before they start to take their own steps toward an infrastructure with improved protection.