Smartphone Security - An Essential Guide

Smartphone security from Muthu Kumar

Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012

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2011 gave a very powerful positive impact on specialized business life for Social Media and Smart Phone Professionals - many new Gadgets, Applications, Job Profiles, Start-ups and Success Stories.

2012 – Definitely, is coming with lot more new opportunities for IT communities.

Well, what is essential for your success in 2012 – Let’s take a quick look on top knowledge requirements.

• Mobile Application Programming – It is not just Android, Windows Phone and IOS Programming. Look into HTML5, CSS3, Advance Java-script, JSON, JQuery and PHP. Mobile WEB Frameworks are going to be an excellent option for “Develop Once-Deploy to All” Concept.


• Customized Agile Project Management – Agile is still not professionally implemented in many organizations. Most of the Small and Medium size companies are using it as simplified version of traditional project management – but in the name of Agile. Certified Scrum Master and Agile Scrum Trainings for your Project Team are essential for a success with quality.


• Location Based Services – There are very few applications with Location based Content Identification as a feature and most of them are just social and Infotainment. There are lot more requirements which can be fulfilled with LBS – for Example: Tourism, Education etc.


• Data Center / Networking Technologies- The demand for networking professionals is high with virtualization and cloud computing projects. Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.


• Smartphone Security – Smartphones are becoming part of corporate network elements now days and security for official and personal data becomes major question. Data Security Applications, Anti-virus Tools, Remote Content Management, Policies for using Smartphones are high in requirement.


• User Interface Design – UI Design and Development is an important presentation layer element, which decides the success of many Smartphone and Tablets apps, and also PC and WEB Apps. There are certification course available to educate you about best practices and standards and it is a hot item in job market too.


• Mobile Commerce / Payment – Smartphones and Feature phones are fully capable for Money Management now days with Applications from various vendors. There were few banking apps, mobile malls and payment apps showed success stories last year, and I am expecting more to come in 2012.


•  Context Aware Applications – A new technology provides improved user experiences by using the information about a person's interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service.


• Gaming Smartphones, Devices – estimated to $800 million business, it provides numerous opportunities for business owners and technical professionals.


• Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support community and this will improve a lot in future.


• Business Intelligence – from Cost saving to investing in Technology, I am expecting many new prospects with BI.  There are certifications, Business Analysis best practices to improve it.


• Life with Open Source – Open source is not just limited to PHP and MYSQL, but there are more useful, free to use, efficient platforms for developers, designers, project managers, analysts, testers, business owners and general IT end-users.

I wish you all the best in this New Year 2012 for many new success stories, career improvements and business values.

3 Quick tips to create secured Smartphone access

Are you using a Smartphone? Yes..? Oh Good. !! I am sure you are using your phone not just as a device to talk to your friends, send and receive messages – but also to store email messages, personal and office documents, presentations, audio, video files etc. When I discussed about their usage of smartphone devices, many friends accepted that they are using it as a mass storage device too – Just like a personal USB drive.

Security becomes an essential point, when your device is used as an information storage gadget. Smartphone device can be protected by using passwords / PINs.  Strong passwords are vital for maximum security. I propose these quick tips to create secured smartphone passwords / PINs.

1. Use folder security settings always. Nokia, Samsung devices are having inbuilt folder management tools with encryption options. Android devices, Windows Phones and Iphone devices are having operating system level file / folder security settings with encryption, and password protected.

2. Create passwords with combination Text and Numbers. Change your passwords often. Never keep text passwords related to you, your work or family member names. Secure your memory card, Bluetooth access with PIN password. This will be usually numbers only. Don’t use continues numbers, same numbers, birthdays / anniversary dates etc.

3. Create multiple profiles and use a profile with less information visibility while traveling. Create un-usual gestures, while using Android point based locking system or similar.

Share your tips to secured smartphone access – and follow me in twitter for more ideas.

3 essential security policies for Smartphone usage inside Office

Small Offices, Medium size organizations or Large corporate– the official Information should be secured, and managed to its maximum level through defined security policies.

The security policies should be a formal, brief, and high-level statement that embraces an organization’s general beliefs, goals, objectives, and acceptable procedures for a specified subject area. In our case, it is all about smartphone usage.

Define a mandatory require compliance, standards and guidelines, failure to comply results in disciplinary action for every policy division.

I advocate these 3 fundamental security policies for smartphone usage inside office.

Policy #1: Every Smartphone use should activate phone locking after a period of inactivity and use strong passwords or PINs for reactivation.

Policy #2: An Employee must connect from smartphone to the corporate network over secure VPN’s always.

Policy #3: An Employee must encrypt all corporate information stored on the phone using provided tools

I am sure; these policies can be a good start for security management in organizations. Share your comments and suggestions for more discussions.

Android Smartphone Security Management

If you are an Android smartphone user, I am sure you are aware of its security risks too. So, what steps you took to secure your device and information? Well, I would recommend the following Android app to increase the security management on your devices.

NetQin Mobile Security - designed to protect your devices against viruses and malware, while keeping your system running at optimum speed. It scans, detects and kills viruses with award-winning twin-engine (Cloud + Client) anti-virus scanning technology! Anti-lost runs with remote control-like functions, providing worldwide protection for financial losses and privacy leakage. 'Anti-lost' allows users to locate a lost phone, sound an alarm on it, and trace where exactly it is. Try it from here : http://www.netqin.com/en/antivirus/

I am using a Symbian S60 version for my Nokia E63. It is good.

How to create awareness on securing smart phones?

Smartphone is not just a next generation fancy device anymore. It is becoming an unavoidable gadget for most of the IT and non-IT employees. Just check around you – How many friends in your office are using Smartphone? Based on my experiences, I see almost 40% to 60% of IT staffs are using Smartphone. Yes, the non-IT industry is also having Smartphone impact – I see at-least 30% to 45% users.

The challenge is – most of the Smartphone users are unaware of its security risks. So, my question is – are you taking any steps to create an awareness on securing smart phones! Yes, it is required – not only for personal security purposes, but also for corporate IT information security purposes too.

I recommend the following simple activities to create a basic awareness on securing Smartphone devices.

1. Create Simple Posters about known smartphone security challenges and stick them around work places

2. Educate about secured Bluetooth usage and keeping Bluetooth off – while not in use.

3. Create small Case-Stories and publish them in official emails / Official social networks.

4. Guide a session on insecure Wi-Fi networks, and security challenges in using such networks.

5. Call for a Security weekend Day – to make them present their security tips for public interest.

I suggested these activities to my clients – many are following it and seeing some good improvements. I would like to listen in your experiences.

Have a nice day.

Social Networking Security..

I am working on Social Networking Security for Small and Medium size organizations. Share your case studies and suggestions ... lets discuss and work together.

Mobile Data Security

In recent months, I am seeing many advertisements and offers for Smart Phones and the cost is also becoming very less. Features are improving a lot, making the smart phone more than anything for office, personal and social usages. Many buy smart phones for style, official information management [Email and Scheduler] and active involvement with social networks. The Data stored into mobile devices are valuable – Contacts Information, Personal Photos, Chat scripts, Messages and Text notes are few of them. But unfortunately there is less number of Software & Tools for Data security in mobile devices.

Below are two major security tools, I would suggest to have for smart phones

Antivirus Tools:
• Required to scan incoming SMS, MMS and Email Messages.
• Required to scan Bluetooth and USB data transfer
• Required to scan file-system in weekly user defined schedules

Mobile Content Locking Tools:
• Required to secure SMS Inbox with separate passwords. SMS can be grouped based on user preferences
• Required to lock user folders – Personal Images, videos or chat scripts.
• Applications like chat, banking should have improved security with high encryption standards.
• Wrong passwords should deactivate or delete the content permanently.

A personal suggestion would be – make a practice of scheduled data backups from mobile devices.
Developers can also develop more innovative applications for mobile device security – the requirement is getting high in world market.