Mobile computing in the form of smartphones and tablets has become the hot new trend in technology. According to the market research firm IDC, in the first quarter of 2011, the global smartphone market grew 79.7 percent year over year in unit sales. The company also expects tablet sales to grow by 77 percent in 2011, compared to last year.
But there is a large fly in the mobile ointment. Such smartphone platforms as Apple’s iPhone and Google Android have turned out to have one serious security or privacy issue after another. Third party app vendors come short in securing their products. And IT departments are worried about devices cause breaches of network security.
However, this is good news for someone with an information systems management degree or a computer science degree. Hardware vendors, application companies, and corporate IT departments will all have to address the issue.
Between smartphones tracking user locations and apps transmitting personal data to third parties, mobile vendors have found themselves in front of Congress over security and privacy concerns. A recent survey showed that 64 percent of smartphone owners are concerned about either privacy or security when they use mobile apps. In a separate survey, only 49 percent of network administrators were satisfied with the way their organizations handled mobile security.
It’s not surprising that mobile devices have security issues. They are so new that those who make them and use them are still trying to understand the ramifications of the technology. One particularly weak area is the application layer of the devices. Many developers have made poor code writing choices that affect security. In fact, there are strong parallels between the mistakes that mobile developers now make and those that were prevalent when people first wrote Web applications in the mid- to late-1990s. All that repeats problems that were found on the PC platform.
Aside from almost no one designing with security first in mind, few users run even the mobile antivirus and antimalware that is currently available for smartphones. Unlike PCs, it is easy to physically lose a smartphone or tablet, which makes the devices even more of a security risk, as someone with physical possession of a device has more options of breaking in. And the ability to run browsers adds another layer of security problem to mobile devices.
The problems have created a thriving market for those with expertise in mobile security. A check on job search engine SimplyHired showed more than 15,000 positions requiring expertise in both wireless and security. Whether looking for a position with a mobile hardware company, a third party software developer, or a corporate IT department, an expertise in mobile security is a good addition to the resume.
