New security threats are mounting by the day for smartphone users, say the mobile and computing safety experts at Intel’s McAfee.
As a result of hackers increasingly taking aim at mobile devices, security software providers are experiencing what some consider to be the “golden age” of their industry as consumers flock to their products and services at a record-setting pace to shield their treasured phones from nefarious bugs and other attacks.
Infonetics forecasts sales of mobile security software to spike 50% on an annual basis through 2014, becoming a $2 billion business.
“The mobile security market will one day be bigger than that of computers,” Neil Rimer, co-founder of Index Ventures, tells Reuters. “It’s a no-brainer that people will pay to protect their devices, and the market will not be owned by one big player.”
A recent study by telecom gear maker Juniper Networks found a fourfold increase in malware targeted at Android’s operating system from June last year through January, while overall mobile attacks more than doubled.
Particularly vulnerable to security threats are open app stores, an unfortunate reality that was highlighted earlier this year.
The first major mobile security glitch of the modern smartphone era impacted the Android Market in March. At that time, hackers attached malicious code to nearly five dozen hugely popular apps, which shortly thereafter infected 250,000 phones.
