Making Carriers Shoulder Smartphone Security

alphadogg writes "Georgia Tech researchers have received a $450,000 NSF grant to boost security of iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones and the wireless networks on which they run. And it's those networks where the researchers are really zeroing in. The researchers are looking into ways wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon can detect malware on devices and clean up the devices before they do further damage. 'While a single user might realize that a phone is behaving differently, that person probably won't know why,' says Patrick Traynor, assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science. 'But a cell phone provider may see a thousand devices behaving in the same way and have the ability to do something about it.' Georgia Tech is going to build out a cellular network test bed to try out its remote repair techniques."

Comments

Re:Not a big issue...

[arminw]

...There is hardly any malware for mobile platforms....

That is because there is a huge variety of mutually incompatible devices. Manufacturers of phones also tend to design security in, rather than an afterthought, such as happened with Windows. When a device is hacked, such as jail broken iPhone's, the built in security from the manufacturer is nullified. Even though millions of iPhones have been sold, none of them, except for the jail broken ones have any problems with rogue software. Because Apple checks all programs for the iPhone, no bad programming can ever get through.