Tag: google mobile security

Cutting edge new tech from songs to fingerprint sensing are on their way to their devices.

Among the various barriers that have stood in the way of areas such as m-commerce and payments, has been mobile security, and in an effort to help to provide consumers with a greater sense of confidence, some of the leading tech giants are working on some cutting edge new ways to provide that.

Google, for example, is working on an app that allows typed passwords to be replaced with a user’s unique song.

This mobile security app functions by setting a smartphone next to a tablet or laptop that plays a uniquely generated sound through the device’s speakers. The human ear may or may not be able to hear the unique “song”, but it can be picked up by the smartphone’s microphone. This could, in theory, allow Google to change the way that we think about passwords. The application, itself, was created by Or Zelig, Eran Galili, and ori Kabeli, of Israel. They claim that they created it as “security measures had become overly complicated and annoying.”

At the same time, mobile security news has “confirmed” that the Samsung Galaxy S5 will include a fingerprint sensor.

As the unveiling of the new Galaxy S5 from Samsung is expected next week, rumors are flying, and Sammobile has issued a report that claims that it has “confirmed” that the device will be equipped with a new fingerprint reading technology that will be built into the home button of the smartphone.

The report indicated that the fingerprint sensor feature operates when the finger is used to vertically swipe the pad while it is held flat and the swiping is done at a medium speed. Previous rumors had suggested that the entire screen on the Galaxy S5 would be the equivalent to a single large fingerprint reader. However, this new release indicates that it will be built into the home button in a way that is more comparable to the iPhone S5 from Apple.

Clearly, mobile security is becoming one of the top features that help to expand the appeal of the latest devices. Consumers are starting to feel the need to make their gadgets harder to access by the wrong people, particularly as they are conducting a larger number of sensitive tasks with them.

Scamming apps are plaguing users of the official Android application marketplace

Over 1,200 apps that were published onto the Google Play app store have been found to have been designed by “one click fraud” scammers that pose a serious mobile security threat to the Android users who use the applications.

There have been reports of victims being sent tremendous bills with a tiny amount of time in which to pay.

Some of the more common of the latest developments in mobile security scams that have occurred have involved bills of over $3,000 for what was called an annual subscription fee for an online adult video site, for which the users were given three days to pay. The latest scam variation takes more clicks than just one.

Over the last few months, mobile security threats through apps have evolved considerably.

According to Symantec researcher based in Japan, Joji Hamada, “The new type not only requires clicks, but it also requires users to send an email in order to register to become a member of a service, call a given phone number to acquire a password, and enter the password to log into the fraudulent site.” Hamada added that “That’s quite a bit of work to get through just to be scammed.”

However, the users that do successfully complete the process are slammed with these tremendous bills and short periods of time in which to pay. The scammers lure people to these apps featuring mobile security threats by doing what Hamada called “abusing the search function on Google Play,” which helps to make sure that those applications remain at the head of the search results.

He explained that Symantec carried out a test on the top 24 hits for a search at Google Play and found that out of that number 21 had some form of malicious mobile security threat connected to it.

According to a research report from a team at the Information Networking Institute from Carnegie Mellon University, the people who fall victim to one click scams don’t legally owe the money for which they have been billed, but they often pay it anyway because they are too ashamed to admit that they clicked on the link, which is usually for pornographic material.