mobile security

Whilst analysts in Gartner and McAfee are busy looking into their crystal balls to find where attacks will focus in the following year, I noticed two very interesting articles (here and here) on the Symi Weblog. In my opinion they raise some very interesting questions that have not been commented on, and are ones which I think are highly valid.Ollie Whitehouse has pointed out on a number of occasions that Microsoft’s sharing of code between traditional desktop Windows and it’s mobile counterparts is a risky business, and one that could set the software giant up for a continuation of it’s Patch Tuesdays and Zero Day Wednesdays.

His argument is based around the fact that whilst Microsoft are continuously patching the desktop incarnations of Window’s, the mobile side which is using a lot of the same code is going un-patched.

This leaves open a lot of unanswered questions.

Whilst Windows Mobile is not the most popular Smartphone OS, it is increasing in popularity. And as smartphone’s proliferate, so will the attention level of hackers and malicious code writers interest in a given OS.

So is Windows Mobile/BC/Pocket PC edition following in the footsteps of it’s predecessors? With regards mobile threats, are we at the stage today with the mobile devices like we were in the early nineties with Windows 3.0/3.1? Is this code reuse and lack of patching going to cause problems further down the line?

Could this be a case of those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

And whilst in recent years Microsoft has started to take security a lot more seriously, is there enough focus on the mobile side?

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