Beware! malware can immobile your mobile

As India adds 6-7 million mobile connections every month, users remain blissfully unaware that there are almost 200 variants of malware that can get into their phones, jam them and wipe out the entire address book, data and music files while they perform an everyday task of connecting to the Internet, using a Wi-Fi network, or employing the increasingly popular Bluetooth or infra-red technologies to transfer or download data.

While mobile carriers like Bharti Airtel, MTNL, Hutch and others do have security systems in place for wired communication, not a single Indian service provider can detect and kill viruses when mobile handsets communicate (over-the-air or OTA) wirelessly. Currently, to detect and kill such viruses, mobile users need to have anti-virus software on their mobiles (which most users do not install). If mobile carriers, however, were to start scanning every message (or packets of data) relayed to the handsets, 25-30 per cent of the smartphone users (almost 40-50 million users of the 160 million mobile phone users in India) would not have to worry about mobile virus/security threats, contend experts.

The world over, Japanese player NTT DoCoMo has been the most aggressive carrier deploying OTA device management technology, but other carriers in Asia have followed with the US and European carriers later taking a closer look. Sprint became the first US carrier to announce an OTA device management programme and Motorola was one of the first device makers to commit to OTA device management technology. Other names include Telecom Italia, Cingular and Vodafone (to some extent). Most of these carriers are providing these services to corporates and plan to do so for individuals at a later stage. OTA providers ensure that mobile phones comply with the latest firmware and anti-virus software and parameter configurations. They send new virus protection software to end users and also assist in repairing the system, removing malicious applications, and protecting important data, keys, and files on the system.

Capt Felix Mohan, chief information security officer, Bharti -Airtel says, "There is a definite interest among the carriers for such solutions." He feels that in another 12 months or so some of the major telecom operators in India should start providing such services. Capt. Mohan believes such services are necessary as handhelds can easily get infected due to technologies like bluetooth which can then infect the network. Harit Nagpal, Marketing Director, Hutch, says they will certainly evaluate such an option in future. "Of course, deploying it will depend on cost-benefit analysis and other issues," he adds.

In India, Aladdin Knowledge Systems and Tech Mahindra are the other two that are eyeing the Indian telecom space to provide such solutions. McAfee's Mobile Security Risk Management, for instance, sits at the carrier's gateway levels and verifies mobile security threats and shares relevant threats with customers and at the same time scans MMS and email files that a handset user receives, says Kartik Sahani, Director Sales, India and Saarc, McAfee.

The only hindrance in adoption of this service is there is no standard technology. Besides the service providers will have to deal with many partners at each level which is cumbersome and adds to the cost. Sahani says, "If software has to be deployed at the carrier level, it needs to be customised at all the entry points."

Shailendra Sahastrabudhe, India country manager, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, concurs: "With the personal computer, the option to go online or use the Internet is always with the user but mobile phones are always accessible."

Virus Scare

• The number of mobile security incidents in 2006 was more than five times as high as in 2005
  
• The number of mobile operators in Europe and APAC reporting incidents affecting more than 1,000 devices more than doubled in 2006
  
• All operators spent $200,000 or more on mobile security in 2006