Category Archives: Mobile Security

Android malware hype

There is no better publicity for a security company than a good scare. Apparently, some guys at Smobile are taking publicity seriously. They have published a report entitled Threat Analysis of the Android Market, which got them some news coverage. The report includes some pretty scary statements, like:

3% of all of the Market submissions that [...]

Mobile applications may be dangerous

That’s a question that I have been asking myself for quite a while. How dangerous can a mobile application be? How can it be made more dangerous? Or less dangerous?
Here’s a grabbag from Internet today. First, the good side, with two Microsoft articles pointed by Bruce Schneier:

The first one is about the authorization dialogs that [...]

Live from Cardis 2010: Where is our smart card AppStore?

UPDATED: Added slideshare link.
Here is a transcript of my invited presentation at Cardis2010, or at least the things that I thought about before getting there. The slides are available on SlideShare.

Here and Now !

Ajit Jaokar has published a post on Mobile Cloud Computing, in which he asks some questions about mobile computing. I found his questions very interesting, so here are my answers (I kept them short, but I will try to develop some things later):
a) Is ‘mobile cloud computing’ a distinct domain in itself? Or is it [...]

Magstripe: 1. Chip: -1

Being from the smart card industry, I usually don’t spend much time looking at things that work better by swiping cards than by using a good old smart card. Then, a few minutes ago, I looked at the promotional video for the Square payment service. Well, it’s definitely worth watching.
The basic idea is to allow [...]

OMTP TR1 gaining support in the UK

Yesterday, I attended the Mobile Barcamp on Security at ETSI. Even though attendance was rather low, the exchanges were interesting, and the unconference format made them even more interesting. It was my first Barcamp, and I really enjoyed it.
Among the news and messages spread during the meeting, one struck me, even though it is not [...]

Let’s tax Google! All of us!

I am French, and I must admit that my government spends a lot of time innovating about technology, in particular in relation with artistic creation. After enacting a wonderful antipiracy law that will cause problems to people with poorer network security skills than their neighbors, a recent report is suggesting to tax Google because it [...]

How to secure Santa’s database?

I read very alarming news today, for a lot of kids around the world: Santa’s naughty-nice database has been hacked. The very good article shows all the typical issues related to privacy, and also to the fact that some records are grossly incorrect; all typical issues encountered when such a massive leak occurs.
Now, here is [...]

Unleashing Android on a Nook

Using an open system to develop a closed device is nothing new, and it is working. We can therefore hardly call Barnes&Noble innovators for basing their Nook e-book reader on the Android operating system. In another community, opening closed devices (and especially those that run on an open system) is also a well-known sport, and [...]

The Leyio PSD

The mobile security community already know about PTDs (personal trusted devices), but do we know about, but until very recently, I didn’t know what a PSD was. It seemed obvious from the ad I received from one of my favorite e-commerce sites, so I looked up the device.
The Leyio has been launched a few months [...]