Category: Mobile Security

Mobile commerce security takes top priority with SoftBank

Gemalto, a leading digital security firm, has announced that it will be providing services to SoftBank Mobile in Japan. SoftBank has a keen interest in mobile commerce and engaging consumers that are becoming more heavily reliant on smartphones and tablets. To this end, SoftBank Mobile aims to provide these consumers with new mobile commerce services. The issue of security, however, has been a major concern for SoftBank, which is why it has turned to Gemalto.

Gemalto aims to address digital threats in mobile commerce

Gemalto has a great deal of experience when it comes to digital security. The firm has been involved in the mobile space for some time, providing comprehensive services that have helped make mobile platforms and services more secure against the threats that exist in the digital space. Mobile commerce receives a great deal of interest from hackers and malicious groups from around the world, which is why Gemalto is also beginning to see more attention from companies that are involving themselves in mobile commerce.

NFC technology to be made more secure

SoftBank Mobile aims to bring NFC-based mobile payments to more people throughout Japan. NFC technology will be used to facilitate payments being made from mobile devices, but the technology itself has received criticism in the past for its lack of security features. The security concerns that consumers have when it comes to NFC technology could drive them away from SoftBank’s mobile commerce endeavors. Gemalto will be providing services to the organization in order to help dispel some of the security threats that are associated with NFC.

Gemalto may help boost consumer confidence in mobile commerce

Mobile commerce is growing very quickly in Japan. While consumers do have concerns regarding security, these concerns are outweighed by the convenience that consumers find when participating in mobile commerce. Gemalto may be able to help put some of the security concerns that some people have to rest, allowing them to join in on the mobile commerce trend.

A report from Check Point Software revealed that for nearly half of them, this led to over $100,00 in damages.

A recent report produced by Check Point Software, which was published under the title of “The Impact of Mobile Devices on Information Security” has indicated that over the 12 months preceding their survey 79 percent of businesses experienced an incident relating to mobile security.

The survey not only determined that these issues were quite common but they are also very costly.

The survey included the participation of 790 IT professionals. It was conducted by Dimensional Research, which discovered that for 42 percent of the businesses that experienced these mobile security incidences, 42 percent said that it cost over $100,000 to repair the damages. Moreover, for 16 percent of the participants, the cost of these incidents was greater than $500,000.

Among large businesses, 52 percent said that mobile security incidents cost them over a half million dollars.

Nearly all of the companies that permitted the use of personal smartphones said that there is a growth in the number of these devices connecting to their corporate networks. Moreover, 45 percent of them said that there are five times more personal smartphones connecting to those networks than there had been in 2011.

At the same time, the research suggested that 63 percent of the participating businesses do not manage the corporate information over personal smartphones. Furthermore, 93 percent have stated that they have struggled to implement policies surrounding their BYOD programs. In fact, 67 percent felt that mobile security regarding corporate information is their primary challenge with BYOD policies.

Check Point mobile security evangelist and researcher, Tomer Teller, explained in a statement that “Without question, the explosion of BYOD, mobile apps, and cloud services has created a herculean task to protect corporate information for businesses both large and small.” He added that “An effective mobile security strategy will focus on protecting corporate information on the multitude of devices and implementing proper secure access controls to information and applications on the go. Equally important is educating employees about best practices as majority of businesses are more concerned with careless employees than cybercriminals.”