Author: Julie Campbell

While safety and privacy concerns are still high among smartphone users, they continue to take unnecessary chances.

Smartphones are being used for a growing number of tasks every day, from placing phone calls and sending and receiving texts, to communicating thorough email, making product purchases, banking, and a broad range of other activities that require a high level of mobile security.

Many of these device users are very conscious of risks, and yet their behaviors increase their chances of data theft.

The amount of sensitive data that is being stored on smartphones is incredible. It not only includes login information for email and social network accounts, but it also involves proof of insurance cards, credit and debit card numbers, identification numbers, and an entire directory of contact information for virtually everyone we know. But at the same time, many of us fail to make the right mobile security choices to ensure that this information stays out of the hands of others.

Mobile security efforts are not nearly as strong among consumers as the steps taken on PCs.

Many consumers are unaware of the fact that their devices could be hacked or become infected with a virus. Moreover, few have taken the steps required to stop this data from being used by someone who has stolen the device.

ABC News recently reported that there are ten foolish behaviors that many people either do or fail to do in the use of their mobile devices. They included the following:

• A lack of password protection for their phone in general and for individual apps and accounts.
• Failing to purge old smartphone data before disposing of the device.
• Making purchases through a smartphone browser instead of through a commerce application.
• Failing to log out of banking and payments apps.
• Connecting automatically to any WiFi connection that is available.
• Leaving the Bluetooth connection open while not in use.
• Storing highly sensitive data on smartphones, such as Social Security numbers, PINs, and bank or credit card account information, which require far more mobile security than the device is capable of providing.

The software team based in Norway will be partnering with Neomobile out of Italy.

Opera Software has just announced that it will be working with Neomobile, a specialist in direct carrier billing, in order to provide the users of the Opera Mini browser to make one click mobile payments from their smartphones in order to make purchases of digital content.

The purchases can be made quickly and easily and the total amount is added to the user’s cell phone bill.

The company stated that there are over 208 million people who are already using the app in order to access the web. An additional 21 million are using Opera Mobile. The hope is that the new partnership will result in operator billing on the Opera Payment Exchange (OPX).

The OPX is a form of link among mobile payments billing systems and content publishers and providers.

According to Opera, it helps to make certain that mobile payments can be quickly and safely made in a simple and secure way over the Mini browser.

On the other hand, Neomobile is a company that offers mobile payments solutions, but it is also a worldwide mcommerce group. It provides the users of smartphones and tablets with content in a partnership between digital content services and producers, and carriers.

The new agreement between Opera and Neomobile was just announced, indicating the very first steps that the two companies would be taking together. At the moment, and for the first while, it will impact only the mcommerce group arm of the company. This means that the mobile payments can be used for purchasing music, games, video, and other types of digital content that can be downloaded or viewed from the device. It takes only one click for the direct carrier billing through the Mini browser, and it is available to consumers in eleven different countries.

For now, these mobile payments will not be available for actual physical goods that must be shipped to the consumer. It is applicable only to digital content that can be obtained right away through the use of the smartphone or tablet device.