Increasingly powerful mobile phones are making Internet access and use more convenient than ever. However, the security of mobile operating systems is not as mature or as strong as that of workstation and server operating systems. Platforms like Windows and Ubuntu receive security scrutiny, and regular and frequent updates to resolve security problems. The open source/free software communities and Microsoft are more or less open about security problems and fixes.By contrast, mobile systems lag far behind the established industry standard for open disclosure about problems and regular patch distribution. For example, Google has never made an announcement to its android-security-announce mailing list, although of course they have released many patches to resolve many security problems, just like any OS vendor. But Android open source releases are made only occasionally and contain security fixes unmarked, in among many other fixes and enhancements.To read this article on the Electronic Frontiers Foundation blog in full, see:
www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/dont-sacrifice-security-mobile-devices
Don’t Sacrifice Security on Mobile Devices
Increasingly powerful mobile phones are making Internet access and use more convenient than ever. However, the security of mobile operating systems is not as mature or as strong as that of workstation and server operating systems. Platforms like Windows and Ubuntu receive security scrutiny, and regular and frequent updates to resolve security problems. The open source/free software communities and Microsoft are more or less open about security problems and fixes.