NEARLY 2 percent of all mobile devices in the world are infected with virus today, a global security vendor said. This is roughly seven times as much as the percentage of attacks last year, a security vendor said.
Check Point Software Technologies Vice President for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa Steve McWhirter said his company got the data from its network of enterprise customers and potential clients.
“All of our enterprise customers or our potential customers have a gearing installed in their network, all of that gear reports into a big cloud, and that cloud becomes a knowledge base,” he said.
“What we can do to that knowledge base is tell how many of our customers are using app and how many are being infected, and so from this, last year we found customers with that number of mobiles and that number of infections. So at the moment, the research said that about 2 percent of all mobile phones are infected.
Do you think that is a small number? The obvious thing is 2 percent is a big case.” By next year, the infection is expected to go up to 10 percent.
“I think it is very alarming because we rely so much on our phones. I have my entire business on this phone,” he added.
To combat this, his company launched the Check Point Mobile Threat Prevention, a new mobile-security solution that allows enterprises to battle today’s mobile-threat environment.
McWhirter said the product delivers the most complete platform for stopping mobile threats on iOS and Android, and delivers real-time threat intelligence and visibility for extension into existing security and mobility infrastructures.
Check Point Mobile Threat Prevention provides the “best mobile-security solution for enterprises that need to manage and mitigate the risks of bring-your-own-device and protect their employees and corporate assets from mobile-cyber threats. With the industry’s highest mobile threat catch rate, this innovative and enterprise-ready platform is the only solution that detects threats on the device, application and in-network levels and provides a transparent user experience and allows for immediate detection and removal of mobile threats, allowing users to stay securely connected without compromise.”
“We are experiencing very high adoption rates for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets from individuals to enterprises, especially in the BYOD [bring your own device] paradigm that is increasingly popular throughout Asia Pacific,” McWhirter said.