Security Threats in Cell Phones

Number of people using Cell Phones for personal and business use is drastically increased over past few years, but the security of mobile phone still remains a major issue. Day by day mobile spamming is increasing. SMS evolved as a marketing strategy to have targeted consumers. You will daily get unsolicited messages. Some of them even carry a potential virus. Some of the virus can process your phone dead. Mobile phones are always vulnerable to viruses. First ever computer virus that infected mobile was the ‘Cabir’. Even PDA phones are susceptible to viruses such as Palm viruses.

In earlier mobile phones there weren’t much stress to the security part, as the security problems relating mobiles are considerably low. As time passed, mobile phone becomes more of a computer than a device to communicate. There have been attempts to incorporate security measures in the recent digital system to address the basic security issues. Some of the most common issues are identity theft and scanning. Using scanning third party in the local area can intercept and secretly listen to the call. Loop holes are present in the modern protocol that will allow a third party to eavesdropping or cloning.

Viruses and other malwares can be easily spread through PDAs and smart phones. Once entered into the handset the virus will start to slow down the functioning of the mobile. What more, if someone uses an infected mobile to upload data into a corporate network will contrary the desired result?  Another major issue in the mobile world is SMS spoofing. SMS spoofing is the process in which the spammer will send you fake message from the cell of someone you know. There is a second type of SMS spoofing where in the spoofed doesn’t even know the source of the message. It was actually developed to help investigators to trap terrorists and other criminal. It seems that the criminals have more control over this system than the guys who actually found it!

Now a day it’s possible to send a message from someone else cell phone without even physically touching it. It is even possible to send international messages. The actual owner of the cell phone will never know a message has been sent from his mobile until someone comes to him searching the source of the message. This has open new doors in front of the terrorists. According to a recent survey terrorists are widely using this type of SMS spoofing to redirect the investigation team or create mask for something they are about to do.

SMS spoofing is going to make serious security threats unless the mobile manufactures or the service providers aren’t able to sort it out soon. Needless to say it’s more of an alarm of an alarm for cell phone users and law enforcement agents to be careful in depending upon authenticity of SMS messages. By the introduction of windows mobile and smart phones the security issues are bound to rise. It’s time for the mobile manufactures and service providers to work more on the security than anything else is.