Computer and Library Learning (Archived)

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada commissioned a poll by Harris-Decima
which resulted in the 2011 Canadians and Privacy Survey Report. From these results, Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner, concluded that not enough Canadians were actively protecting the information stored on their mobile devices.

30% of mobile device users admitted to storing personal information on their mobile devices; 30% also downloaded applications or “apps” on their devices. 40% reported changing their device settings to restrict the amount of personal information shared with others. For those users storing personal information on their devices, 52% said that they adjusted the settings, in comparison to 35% of those users who did not store personal information.

Privacy Commissioner Stoddart expressed gratification that the 18 to 34 year old group, the biggest users of mobile technology, was the most likely age demographic to protect personal information when using that technology. 66% of users downloading “apps” changed their sharing settings, compared to 31% who did not download “apps” but changed the settings anyway. 55% of respondents expressed privacy concerns regarding social networking sites with 33% somewhat concerned and 10% not concerned. 77% said that it was most important for websites to actively tell users what kind of personal information is collected and how it is used.

60% of responding Canadians believed that their personal information has less protection than it did 10 years ago. More than 80% of respondents wanted tough penalties against organizations that failed to safeguard their information. 83% believed that internet companies should ask permission to track customers’ online behaviour and internet use. 82% expressed opposition to giving police and intelligence services access to email messages and internet use data without a court warrant.

Lookout Mobile Security, a smartphone security company and developer of Lookout Security and Antivirus, published its Lookout Mobile Threat Report this month. Mobile devices are showing the quickest growth in the consumer technology market with sales expected to more than double from 300 million units in 2010 to 650 million units in 2012. In parallel, the growth in mobile applications (or “apps”) has ballooned with people on average spending more time using mobile application (81 minutes) for the first time than using the mobile web (74 minutes) as of June 2011. Consequently, this growth is also seeing an increase in mobile security issues with the rise of mobile malware. The Lookout Mobile Threat Report stated that malware and spyware are mainly targeting Android smartphones although some commercial spyware is targeting Mac iOS devices. Spyware makes up over half of the threats directed against Android but malware has closed the gap dramatically in June 2011.

The McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2011 reported that Android OS-based malware easily outpaced all other mobile malware sources combined. Mobile device threats make use of browser exploits, use botnet functionality, and utilize rootkit features that are hidden and ongoing. Maliciously altered applications are a natural route for infecting mobile devices. Here are some recent examples: Android/Jmsonez.A, Android/Smsmecap.A, and the Android/DroidKungFu, and Android/DrdDreamLite.

A Symantec Security Response June 2011 report, A Window Into Mobile Device Security: Examining the security approaches employed in Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, pointed out that not having a single source to obtain Android apps can increase the likelihood of picking up malware and malicious apps can be designed to confuse users into allowing activities even though Android apps are isolated through a computer sandbox. Symantec has introduced Norton Mobile Security for Android 2.0 to help users protect their mobile devices and their stored information.