Mobile Phone Security

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Problem statement1

Research objectives2

Research question2

Significance2

CHAPTER 02: LITERATURE REVIEW3

Attack5

Attack Mitigations7

CHAPTER 03: METHODOLOGY9

Mixed Research9

Classification of research methods9

Multi-method studies10

Mixed method studies10

Steps in mixed methodology10

Strength and weakness of the mixed research:11

Strengths11

Weaknesses12

REFERENCES13

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION

Background

The mobile telecommunication industry persistently and rapidly expands. Contradicting the recent economic downturn, the number of mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide has reached an estimated 4.6 billion in 2009. It is also projected that the revenue of this lucrative business would increase from approximately $350 billion in 2002 to over $800 billion in 2011. (Culnan 1993)

Accordingly, achieving mobile phone security requires building security into these three basic building blocks, namely the phone platform, the mobile phone applications, and the mobile content. From these three perspectives, the researcher must explore the set of conditions that must be satisfied to meet the stakeholders' expectations. These can be materialized as the set of security requirements which the stakeholders project on these elements; analogous to the milestones on the path to our destination.

Problem statement

Due to incapable mobile phone security, the user faces lot of trouble. Their phones are attacked by various viruses which results in lot of hassle for the user. Inefficient mobile phone security affects the users and the mobile phone companies as a whole. There are various threats to mobile phone security and the users and the mobile both are affected negatively. In this research we will analyze the possible threats to mobile phone security, the possible measures and its affects.

Research objectives

The researcher aims to address the following issues

The threats to mobile phones

The user perception of mobile phone security

The measures to counter the threats to mobile phone

Measures to improve mobile phone security

Research question

The research aims to answer the following question

What are the kinds of threats to mobile phone?

How users perceive mobile phone security?

How mobile phone security can impact user?

What are the available measures to counter mobile phone threats?

How the existing security measures can be improved?

Significance

This research is very important and it will fill out gaps in existing literature and open new horizon for future research. The existing literature lack focus on the counter measures of mobile phone threats and the user's perception of mobile phone security.

CHAPTER 02: LITERATURE REVIEW

The changing face of the mobile ecosystem unavoidably impacts the threat and trust models as well as the assumptions on which the mobile phone security model base. There are various threats which include ever changing technology, viruses, privacy issues and caller id issues. We now consider the security implications of such openness and convergence. In open application development model, mobile phone applications are no longer con- trolled by the network and platform providers. In particular, as the application development kits have become publicly available, there are an increased number of applications provided by the third-party application developers and amateurs. This model opens the opportunity for malware which has become a serious threat against mobile phones. (Kasper 2005)

To make the situation worse, the availability of open unlocked mobile devices further increases the chance of installing malware because the users are ...