CellTrust (News - Alert), a provider of secure mobile messaging and applications, has reportedly predicted that the year 2010 is going to mark a milestone as far as mobile security and SMS security in particular is concerned, as mobile devices and text messaging have become more and more intrinsic to everyday life and work and cyber criminals have begun moving to this channel.

 

According to an estimate, around five trillion text messages were sent globally in 2009, creating an estimated $150 billion market. Today, SMS is considered to be the most popular communication channel on the handset, as the service offers a simple, rapid and affordable platform to the users for quick and easy transfer of information via the mobile device.

 

Still, the SMS platform has shown a number of security flaws in the last 18 months across all major mobile operating systems. Cyber criminals utilize these flaws to exploit the SMS protocol and pose serious security threats to the mobile users in form of SMS spoofing, SMS phishing, SMS worms and SMS hijacking, and initiate cyber attacks.

 

The SMS spoof messages usually look authentic to the recipient, which makes it very difficult to discern authenticity of a regular SMS message. The expensiveness of testing security scenarios around SMS makes it rather unlikely for the global carriers and other players along the mobile value chain to expend the necessary resources to secure the channel.

CellTrust offers a solution named CellTrust SecureSMS which offers comprehensive privacy on the mobile device via a highly encrypted, tamper-proof process enabling message sizes up to 5,000 characters, and converts any phone into a secure communication device. The solution features a remote wipe functionality that ensures users can wipe the handset if it is lost or stolen, which adds another critical layer of security.

 

The CellTrust SecureSMS Appliance is the first solution that offers secure SMS communication between handsets and enterprise applications ensuring highly encrypted end to end security. The solution ensures that the information is kept private and only delivered to the intended recipient, and complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or ‘HIPAA’, Federal Information Security Management Act or ‘FISMA’ and Sarbanes-Oxley guidelines. The SecureSMS Appliance and Gateway (News - Alert) is available at over 700 carriers in more than 200 countries.

 

According to Sean Moshir, CEO, CellTrust, the company is on the front lines with customers all over world and sees an increase in demand globally from government agencies, financial services organizations, regulatory bodies and corporate IT security teams for additional layers of SMS security to what is typically loaded by the manufacturer or carrier on the handset. Moshir noted that most mobile devices, smartphones included, come with standard SMS, which is clear text and wide open for fraudulent activity as there is also no audit trail for corporations so compliance requirements are not being met. Mobile banking, government and healthcare all require the ability to secure and track and trace critical mobile communication and CellTrust predicts mobile security will continue to be a hot growth area in the coming year, Moshir added.

 

In September, CellTrust Corporation had reportedly announced that its SecureSMS platform complied with the new and stringent SecureSMS security requirements of the Central Bank of Nigeria.