Smartphone cyber security and how to improve it

Given that a typical computer (such as a laptop) tends to produce far more cyber security notifications than our smartphones (consider how often your computer’s operating system can remind you to update its anti-virus software, for instance) it’s no surprise that the digital safety of a smartphone is taken for granted. In fact, many consumers may not know that smartphones even can be hacked – let alone the ways that smartphones are vulnerable to attacks.

As covered next, one such way is through the very apps that your phone has to offer.

Malicious apps

While app developers have to go through a rigorous quality assurance (QA) process before their app is made available on the given app provider (this discussion will use Apple’s App Store as the example), that doesn’t change the fact that malicious actors can still beat the system.

In fact, according to Apple itself, its App Review team rejected over 215,000 apps in 2020 due to the software’s user privacy violations, and these are just the malicious apps that were discovered. Many other examples of dangerous software will still lie dormant in the App Store, just like that of any other software provider. After all, as Apple’s Newsroom points out, it will never be able to prevent every malicious app from existing – but it may still be the safest place to download smartphone software. “It’s impossible to catch every act of fraud or ill intent before it happens,” the manufacturer explains, “[but] thanks to Apple’s industry-leading antifraud efforts, security experts agree the App Store is the safest place to find and download apps”.

Of course, even the best software security has its limitations, but this impossibility of achieving completely safe apps does reflect the fact that smartphone cyber security is not – and cannot ever be – the responsibility of the manufacturer alone. This is one of the many reasons that it is rarely (if ever) a good idea to jailbreak your smartphone. As explained by kaspersky, the cybersecurity firm: “Jailbreaking is the process of exploiting the flaws of a locked-down electronic device to install software other than what the manufacturer has made available for that device. Jailbreaking allows the device owner to gain full access to the root of the operating system and access all the features.”

When you consider that even the owner of a smartphone that has never been ‘jailbroken’ is susceptible to downloading malicious apps, the dangers of reducing the safety of your smartphone’s operating system become all the more clear. In fact, a chief reason that computers are less safe than smartphones is because computers don’t have the same restrictions in how apps become published and downloadable. A smartphone’s app provider requires, not only a series of QA testing, but also the software developer to disclose their own personal information to the smartphone manufacturer. Yet any web browser, when accessed on a laptop or PC, can offer users downloadable software that has been published quickly and without any such barriers. And when jailbroken, a smartphone becomes one step closer to having the same problem.

What can be done to act on smartphone vulnerabilities?

Manufacturers, smartphone designers and other engineers are already doing plenty of work to avoid having consumers’ mobiles become susceptible to hacking and other malware. Principally, this success stems from the fact that manufacturers ensure that smartphone applications go through many QA procedures and data checks before they end up on their respective app stores.

But as reflected above, no software security system is perfect – and achieving cyber safety is still a two-sided responsibility between manufacturers and device users.

Perhaps, then, the smoking gun is not developers’ lack of cyber security interventions, but rather the need for better communication with the average smartphone users who may otherwise remain unaware of their own susceptibility to cyber attacks. Just some of the ways that this can be achieved is by offering users rewards programmes for reporting malicious smartphone apps and further educating consumers about the risks of careless software downloads – with a particular emphasis on the dangers of jailbreaking any device.