-: These days, we work all over the place.
We're not just stuck in our cubicles behind a computer.
Instead, we can be working no matter where we are.
When I'm sitting in the line at the grocery store,
I can be checking my email and answering student questions.
If I'm sitting on an airplane,
I can be texting to my friend while I'm at 35,000 feet.
Mobile devices are great
and they give us a lot of capability
and a lot of connectivity,
but we also store a lot of personal information in these.
We do our banking, our email,
our pictures, even our online shopping,
all from the palm of our hand,
and while that's all wonderful and it's great,
we have to consider the fact
that there is mobile malware out there.
These devices are not immune to it
and so, how are we going to protect ourself
against these mobile variants?
Well, the first thing we want to do
is ensure that we have an antivirus solution on our devices.
There are third-party products out there
for both iPhones and Android devices
that will allow you to have an anti-malware
or antivirus solution on your phone.
It will scan any attachments you have
that are in your email,
as well as check the device
to ensure it's running properly.
In addition to that, one of the biggest things you can do
is always ensure your mobile device
is patched and updated.
That's right, just like your operating system
on your computer, you need to ensure
your phone is patched and updated.
So, if you're one of those people
that always hits Remind Me Later, don't do that
because what happens is if there is a patch out there,
that means that attackers
have already been able to reverse engineer it
and they know what the vulnerability is.
If there's a patch, there's also an exploit,
so always patch your devices
and ensure your applications are updated.
Now, if you're talking about your operating system,
how do you update an operating system on your phone?
Well, if you're using an iPhone,
it's fairly easy.
Apple will actually push a notification to you
and say the latest version of iOS is out,
click here to update
or it'll ask if you want to do it in the middle
of the night because that way,
it doesn't take away valuable time that you're using it.
Either way, you want to make sure
you're updating your device
so that you always have the latest operating system.
Now, when we talk about Android,
it's a little bit more complicated.
Google puts out the base operating system
and when there's a vulnerability found,
they create the patches for it
and then they pass it out
to the different manufacturers.
The problem is most people aren't running
a Google-based Android device.
Instead you may have a Samsung device or a Huawei device
or an HTC.
And each of these manufacturers has taken that base code
and modified it in some way.
So, usually you have to get your operating system update
from your manufacturer,
so if Google founds out there's a bug today
and they release a patch tomorrow,
it could be two, three, four months
before Motorola or HTC pushes that patch out
to your Android device.
For this reason, Apple is a little bit more secure
if you keep it updated
because they do have a quicker patch and release cycle
since they only have to support their own handsets
and not a bunch of other manufacturers.
When we look at that,
we also to consider our applications.
Where should you get your applications from?
I recommend you only install applications
from the official App Store, if you're using Apple
or the official Google Play store
if you're using Android.
The reason for that is because these stores
do do a check of the code
to see if there's anything malicious in it
before they post it to the official store.
Also, these applications are digitally signed
so they can't be modified once they have been updated
and placed into the store.
While I said that, that is not always the case
and malicious software does make it
into the official stores as well.
Here's a news article, for instance,
that shows how Google had to pull 13 different Android apps
that was installed over half a million times
because they had malware in them.
These apps were able to get into the store
and have malware embedded in it
and got past Google's security
and were pushed out to half a million people's smartphones.
So, just because you're getting it from the store,
doesn't mean it's 100% malware-free either.
They're using signature-based definition scanning
just like most of the antivirus products are
and if it's a zero-day vulnerability
that's being exploited,
these things can get through the store,
so you still have to be worried about it
even if you get it from the store
but definitely you want to pull it from the store
as opposed to just downloading it
from a random website
because you have a much higher chance
of it being secure.
In addition to that, we want to make sure
that we have our defenses up when we're using our phone.
Just because we're using a phone,
doesn't mean we want to fall for phishing attacks
or spyware attacks or any of those other things.
So, we want to be careful with the sites we visit
and the things that we click on
because those are ways
that you can have additional attacks coming at you.
Just like your main device,
you do have attacks coming at you all of the time.
One of the unique ones that happens with your phones
and your smartphones versus a traditional computer
is some pre-texting scams
that are coming through SMS or text messaging.
I don't know about you but I get these things
at least a couple of times a week
where somebody will send a message through SMS
with a link and they expect you to click on it
and if you click it, your web browser will open it
and malware will be installed,
so always be careful
and look out for those type of social engineering
and pre-texting scams
that can come to you through SMS.
So, in conclusion, there's a couple of things
that I want you to remember
when we talk about mobile malware.
Do not jailbreak or root your device.
When you do that, you're bypassing
the natural protections that your system has
and that's going to make you more vulnerable to attack.
Don't use custom firmware or a custom ROM.
When you're using a custom firmware
or a custom ROM, this is specific to Android users,
you're using an alternate version
of the operating system.
It's been forked off the original source code,
so when Google has something that's been patched,
it doesn't necessarily make its way
into those custom firmwares or custom ROMs
and so, you're still going to be vulnerable.
Also, only load official apps from the official stores.
The reason for this, again,
is because those have at least some quality control
and some level of check
before they're released into the public.
And finally, always update your phone's operating system.
Any time there's an update or a patch
for your operating system, or your applications,
you want to make sure you're installing it
because that's going to patch up the known vulnerabilities.