More Security for Android

A lime-green robot becomes the new star on the smartphone horizon

Android has well and truly put the already dynamic smartphone market in a spin. According to Gartner, only 0.5% of smartphones sold in 2008 ran the Google operating system, but since then its market share has risen to 39% in 2011. They even estimate that this figure could reach 49% by 2012.

There are several reasons for this Android boom. For end customers, Android is attractive because it offers a powerful operating system, numerous apps and a wide selection of smartphones. What device manufacturers get with Android is a cost-effective, top-of-the-range operating system that requires little investment. App developers appreciate the openness of the platform and the fact it uses open source components. And the more widespread Android becomes, the more appealing it will be for service providers such as banks that wish to expand their offering to include NFC payment or mobile banking on smartphones.

Where there's money, there's cyber crime

However, Android's popularity is also its weakness. For a long time, the idea of viruses and Trojans on cell phones was only a danger in theory. There was simply no point in hacking into cell phones, mainly because computers were still the easier prey. There has now been a dramatic shift: constantly in use and always connected to the Internet, smartphones are being targeted by malware more and more. And now with mobile payment and banking available on smartphones, new possibilities are emerging. Experience shows that where networking and financial transactions come together, cyber crime is never far away.

Openness is risky

Android is affected by this much more than other mobile operating systems:

• Android has long release cycles. The time it takes for a known security hole to be fixed and closed by the device manufacturer with the release of a smartphone update is long.
• With the volume of new apps appearing on the Android market every day, an element of risk remains that individual apps with potentially harmful content may reach the end user.
• Users can obtain apps in markets that are independent of Google and these markets do not implement as many security precautions as the well-tested Android market of Google.

With its open platform, Android really does offer a virtually unlimited number of possible uses. Therefore in order to make it safe to use mobile payment methods via NFC and mobile banking, more security is needed than is currently provided by Android as standard.