Update
2 MINUTES ON... Meanwhile, not everyone
believes mobile apps pose a
significant threat right now.
The mobile application risk “The jury is out in terms
of how bad this could be for
enterprises,” said Andrew
T
he mobile application vest user data. Most recently, For enterprises and devel- Jaquith, a senior analyst at
landscape is flourish- Citigroup learned that its opers, awareness of the prob- Forrester Research. “At the
ing. Currently, the iPhone mobile banking appli- lem is important, says Hering. moment, I don’t perceive
average smartphone user has cation, unbeknownst to users, Developers must ensure their a lot of risk. The kinds of
22 apps installed and by 2012 saved confidential account app is providing the appro- things [rogue apps] can do
some 50 billion apps will information in a hidden file priate level of privacy and include rooting through your
be downloaded each year, on the devices. security. Enterprises need address book and looking
according to mobile security “In a world where mobile to educate end-users to pay through your music collec-
company Lookout, citing app development is explod- attention to app ratings and tion. This is, frankly, not that
statistics from Nielsen and ing so quickly, even apps you what apps have access to. A big of a deal. We are going
Chetan Sharma Consulting. think you can trust may be simple game probably does to have to see some demon-
But this growth has many leaking sensitive informa- not need to access a user’s stration of real harm before
questioning the privacy and tion,” Hering said. phone book, for example. enterprises will really have to
security risks of mobile apps. According to Lookout’s get worked up about this.”
“We are starting to see App Genome Project, 14 per- Jaquith says organizations
greater interest from mali-
cious parties in the mobile
platform. and one of the big-
cent of free apps for Apple’s
iPhone can access a user’s
contact data.
33%
of free iPhone apps