Group Mulls About Security Techs for Mobile Devices

Smart-Phones Need Security Improvement – Group

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 09/27/2005 | 06:38 PM ]

Today, in a number of countries, you can do almost anything with your cell phone, including e-mailing, money transfer, bill payments, shopping. But those kinds of activities require decent security measures, it appears.

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Data security has been one of the major headaches not only for end-users but for software and hardware manufacturers as well. There are a lot of means to protect your PC, for example install a firewall and/or anti-virus software. While this approach is common for desktop computer world, it still requires a relatively powerful processor to perform this kind of protection, thus, this approach is not suitable for mobile phones in general and smart-phones in particular.

“Without proper security, mobile phones may become a target for hackers and malicious software. The benefit of hardware-based security is that users can rely on their phone and (know) that private data is protected,” said Janne Uusilehto, senior technology manager at Nokia and chairman of the TCG’s Mobile Phone Working Group.

“The TCG’s plans call for mobile handset hardware to support features similar to those of the Trusted Platform Module. The TPM is a security chip designed for PCs and servers that enables a variety of security features, including authentication, protected storage and secure e-mail. The TPM technology will need to be adapted because mobile phones are much smaller than PCs,” writes CNET News.com.

• CNET News.com: Security Lacking for Do-It-All Phones.