Mobile Applications a Key Avenue for Cybercrime
Mobile Application Developers Attempt to Fight off Hackers and Scammers
As we move into the era of wireless technology and mobility, scammers and hacker are now shifting their focus to other electronic devices. Our world is entering what is known as a “major cybercrime turning point” as hackers focus their aim on devices such as mobile phones (specifically Smartphones), tablet PCs, and Tablets. With these new avenues for hackers to obtain an individual’s personal information, computer and mobile developers are becoming very cautious that all of the applications they develop have the top security features to ensure hackers are unable to penetrate into the device and steal personal information.
For the past decade, hackers would infect and obtain individuals’ personal information from their personal operating systems and personal platforms. At the same time, computer security companies and vendors were able to strategize and create software programs to defend against these hackers. As a result, hackers started having a harder time hacking into a personal computer and they have now shifted their focus to other platforms such as mobile devices as an avenue of hacking into an individual’s personal information.
With the rise of Smartphone devices and the demand for mobile applications, hackers are finding it hard to resist the new opportunities and avenues that have been opened up for them to try to penetrate and infect. Everyday there are numerous mobile applications that are released to the public in a variety of mobile application marketplaces such as Apple’s iTunes Mobile Marketplace or Google’s Droid Marketplace and hackers are realized that a lot of these mobile applications do not have the security features which are necessary to prevent cybercrimes.
One of the reasons why many of these mobile applications are not fully equipped with security features can be linked back the fact that the mobile application industry (unlike other industries in the tech world) is populated with a good amount of independent mobile application developers who create mobile applications out of their home office without taking into account security and firewall features like larger corporations/mobile application development companies would do. Then when these mobile applications get placed on mobile marketplaces, Smartphone users that download that specific mobile application may also be opening themselves up for hackers to also access their Smartphone device thru the mobile application that was downloaded.
With so many mobile applications available in the market today, mobile application developers feel that cybercriminal activity is expected to rise to levels never experienced before and hackers will not only be able to access personal information from one’s device, but they will also be able to pinpoint an individuals specific location anywhere in the world using real-time location-based mobile application software. As mobile application developer are starting to become more aware of these threats thru mobile applications, they can only suggest that individuals be more aware of the mobile application they download and advice them to read reviews of the mobile application and only download from a trusted mobile application developer rather than a less-known independent mobile application developer.
Mobile Applications are certainly expected to be the new and most popular avenue which hackers and scammers will be using to access information in the future and until mobile application developers start taking strict security measures to ensure full protection of one’s data, this cybercriminal activity will continue to grow and can potentially be a serious problem which puts millions of individuals at risk.