Protecting mobile devices from external threats

An increasingly mobile workforce requires a new approach to security to protect against threats that could disrupt the business, avoid falling for costly scams and keep sensitive data safe, according to Colin McGuire of Three Ireland.

Speaking at a recent mobile security webinar, McGuire pointed to the scale of the threat facing organisations. “We looked at a few surveys including one conducted by Verizon in the US last year,” he said. “The findings were quite startling. One in 500 company mobile devices has been used to access child abuse material, while one in 300 already has a high-threat malware infection.”

Meanwhile, 40 per cent of the respondents to the Verizon survey said mobile devices were their biggest IT security threat.

He explained that mobile devices can represent chinks in an organisation’s cybersecurity armour. “When you look at traditional end points like laptops, they have several layers of protection. They have grown up connected to the internet over the past 20 years and have lots of security layers like BitLocker, anti-virus, anti-spam protection and so on. Phones generally just have a four-digit pin. And they are highly mobile and go to places like pubs and restaurants where laptops are not normally found – pubs, restaurants and so on.”

He mentioned Jeff Bezos as an example of an individual whose mobile phone was hacked. “He is one of the richest men in the world and the owner of Amazon and he still had his phone hacked by state actors. A video sent via WhatsApp contained malware which exploited an unpatched vulnerability on his phone with multiple consequences for Jeff and his company. That was a very sophisticated attack. Fortunately, most of us wouldn’t be targeted in such a way.”

But a great many people still find themselves subject to scam calls and texts. “Last year the Garda reported a 370 per cent increase in scam calls, texts and emails and an 80 per cent rise in fraudulent phone, email and texts,” McGuire noted. “Lots of us have received those texts purporting to be from DHL or DPD and asking us to click on a spurious link to track a package. And that’s not to mention the HSE ransomware attack, which is still affecting the healthcare sector and broader society.”

Scalable solution

The rising threat level led Three to seek a mobile security solution that could scale up from a sole trader to a large enterprise. “We looked around for a partner and found a company called Corrata,” he said. “Corrata developed 3Mobile Protect, a security tool that protects smartphones that detects and automatically stops threats from texts, emails and so on.”

3Mobile Protect shields mobile devices from threats such as phishing and malware. “It also lets users filter out non-work apps and content such as social media, gambling and inappropriate websites, as well as set domestic and roaming usage caps. Setup takes minutes. The user just downloads it from their app store. And there is no large up-front investment.”

Also speaking at the webinar, Corrata security expert Dylan Fermoyle pointed out that the 3Mobile Protect solution does not interfere in any way with the user experience or their privacy. “Mobile devices can be a vector for an attack. Threats are coming in via email and text all the time. It only needs an employee to click on the link once. 3Mobile Protect moves organisations to a position where they don’t have to worry about that any more. With 3MobileProtect, if the user unwittingly clicks on the link they will get a message from 3MobileProtect telling them the site is blocked.”

Dublin Simon Community is benefiting from 3Mobile Protect. “We realised our mobiles were a vulnerability,” said head of finance Martin Hannigan. “We were put in contact with Corrata and they put 3Mobile Protect on to the management team’s phones. We saw all the instances of attacks fall away. We rolled it out to other members of the team and the same thing happened. We have since rolled it out across the entire organisation.”

Social enterprise Fiver Rivers is Ireland’s first independent fostering agency. Mobile security is of paramount importance to the organisation, as data-protection officer Donal McDonagh explains: “We can have social workers who are dealing with foster families and children in tricky situations and need access to sensitive information in the middle of the night. We need to protect the device while ensuring they have access to the data. We looked at different options and the cost, affordability and security levels made 3MobileProtect the best solution for us.”