The smartphone – like every computing device before it – is under attack. With over 286 million variants of malware in the world, according to security company Symantec, the smartphone today is on the path to becoming as vulnerable as the PC. While most customers think of their smartphone as a phone the fact is that is not, it is a computer. Not only that but it is a computer that customers take out into public and onto a variety of networks. Not only that but most smartphone users have less security in place on the device that they take into public than they do on the home PC.
What harm can mobile malware cause? An app called Battery Boost was recently singled out – and closed down – by premium rate regulator PhonepayPlus in the UK. Customers download the app thinking that they will get more life out of their battery. While they labor under this false illusion the app has sent a text to a premium rate number and money is being taken off the customers phone bill at an alarming rate.
Customers look to the industry for help and protection, and certainly there is a role to play in the education of customers. There is also a role for the likes of Karsten Nohl (CP: Hacker deciphers mobile traffic, is alarm or thanks the appropriate response?) to point out the weak spots in telcos’ infrastructure. 
There is, however, another approach. As highlighted by excellent blog talkRA, Facebook is using crowdsourcing to combat fraud and identify other weaknesses. By admitting its systems are not foolproof, they asked their customers to help identify them. They went as far as offering them cash for finding loopholes. They paid one customer $7,000 and they paid out a total of $40,000 in the first three weeks of the project.
With customer trust being of prime importance in making new services a success, it seems the more people who are on the defense team the better. With new adventures for telcos in the ‘excitement before launch stage’ – NFC, mobile payments and M2M are examples – building customers’ trust will be vital.
Whether a telco would be brave enough to ask its customers to tell it where its weaknesses lie is another question – many customers would be more than happy to tell them what is wrong. For Facebook at least, it seems there may be safety in numbers.
Source for image: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-quarterly-threat-q2-2011.pdf