The smartphone, and increasingly the tablet, are fast becoming the primary device of choice for both personal and enterprise use. Infosecurity spoke with Omri Sigelman, VP of marketing and products for AVG Mobile Solutions, at last week’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas to discuss the state of security in the rapidly changing ‘post-PC era’.
Infosecurity.Com - It wasn’t too long ago that the “smart” mobile space was comprised entirely of Nokia devices running Symbian, Sigelman observed. He said his job, the job of AVG Mobile, and that of the rest of the security industry will be to anticipate how these mobile devices will be used in the future.
“Computing in general is moving toward mobile…post-PC devices, more accurately. These days, many devices are not PCs, but they are not necessarily mobile”, making reference to the vast array of IP-enabled devices.
“We do not have a crystal ball, but we need to do our best to understand the threats, how people will use their mobile devices, and what needs they have”, he said. “If you combine these three together, you start to get a good picture of where mobility is going.”
Based on some of the assumptions made using this framework, Sigelman sees mobile devices of the future as – rather than standalone devices – part of a group of devices. He says to think about the toaster or refrigerator in your kitchen and how they will soon (if not already) communicate with devices like your smartphone. They can be grouped by either personal or enterprise use, and they will comprise an entire mobile ecosystem.
“We are talking about clusters”, he added. “The kind of interactions they have in the future” will be a primary concern of the security industry. More
