SMobile Offers Security for Wireless Networks

Computer viruses are bad enough but now it seems that those bad little bugs are attacking our mobile devices. SMobile Systems just announced the launch of Network Shield, which offers anti-virus ; content, URL and image filtering ; and anti-spam capabilities for multimedia messaging (MMS) and downloadable content on wireless carrier networks. Network Shield extends SMobile’s suite of mobile device security solutions to the network, delivering a solution that protects against mobile viruses, spam, and other threats, from the device to the network.

According to research from the SMobile Threat Center, the number of mobile malware variants has more than doubled since the beginning of 2006, bringing the total number of mobile viruses to over 365. SMobile expects close to 1,000 viruses in total by the end of 2007, with over 80% of malware exploiting weaknesses in communication interfaces like Bluetooth, WiFi, and MMS. As a result, wireless carriers are being proactive about putting mobile security measures in place, and ensuring that unwanted mobile threats cannot penetrate their subscriber networks. By scanning for threats at the network level, SMobile’s Network Shield offers a first line of defense for carriers to guard users from unwanted viruses, spam, and illicit content and images before they travel to the handset.

SMobile’s full suite of secure mobile solutions for smartphones and other mobile devices offers virus protection, call, image, and message filtering, and firewall capabilities at the handset level. This allows a significantly higher level review of conduct and authorization (enterprise-level, parental control). By embedding at the network and device layer, carrier networks, device (peer-to-peer), and device-to-hybrid networks (such as WAN, WiFi, WiMax, and Bluetooth) are controlled. All SMobile solutions carry an extremely light footprint, with minimal impact on device performance (memory, processor, and battery).