ATLANTA, March 30, 2011 — M.A.D. Partners LLC, The Smartphone Security Company, provider of the award-winning Mobile Enterprise Compliance and Security Server (MECS), today announced powerful enhancements to M.A.D.'s recently announced unique patent-pending Application Access Control™.
In its partnership with RiskIQ™, a leading provider of online risk intelligence, Mobile Active Defense will enable enterprises to significantly lower the risk of hostile or malicious "apps" on their iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices.
"App stores are the best hostile software distribution mechanism ever invented by man," said Mobile Active Defense's Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Rob Smith. "Whitelists and blacklists for mobile devices are insufficient. Good is not good enough when dealing with hostile apps. Unless you carefully vet and analyze the software, you don't know if there is a time bomb or other triggers hidden in the app."
Ergo in point, only a few weeks ago the Google Android App store was dealt a blow that some called "Orwellian" after it emerged that it had to disable 58 different apps installed on more than a quarter million smartphones around the world since they contained malicious software.
The RiskIQ Threat Flow Engine technology operating in the MECS Server prevents and remediates against unauthorized and known hostile apps from ever reaching the mobile device, preventing their installation, a feature that MAD Partner's large enterprise customers have been anxious to deploy.
Application Access Control™ also detects, as Smith puts it, "Apps behaving badly. Some apps are safe and others attempt to violate security and compliance policy. AAC automatically detects apps behaving badly and initiates a remediation process based upon company policy and procedures."
By continuously analyzing the mobile threat environment through automated behavioral analysis of mobile applications, the partnership tests available apps in authorized and unsanctioned app stores. The unique capability identifies applications and mobile developers involved in mobile phishing, mobile identity theft, marketing fraud and mobile malware.
"Mobile apps can access an unsuspecting mobile user's address book, SMS messages, even the microphone and camera and send this data back to a command and control server. Our collaboration with Mobile Active Defense and their fundamental architecture of the MECS Server provide something no other enterprise-grade mobile security product could provide until now – detection and blocking of hostile apps before they can be installed and cause any damage, breaches or data loss," said Lou Manousos, Founder and CEO of RiskIQ™.
With billions of mobile apps being downloaded, embedded unknown payloads are a great concern to every company employing iDevices and other mobile platforms. Application payloads may contain ad-ware, time bombs, event triggers, bot-net code, and phone-home routines that transmit personal and corporate confidential data to unknown hostile and criminal entities.
When a customer downloads an app, there is an "assumed" level of trust that there weren't any angry developers working on it. A recent attack method is to re-package unauthorized versions of popular apps such as RoboDefense and various wallpaper apps that are instead hostile to the device, the data and the enterprise. Many such apps are making the rounds through a number of unofficial app markets in China, such as the recent Trojan HongTouTou.
"Application Access Control is a must-have feature in mobile device security," Smith and Manousos agreed. "The M.A.D. RiskIQ™ partnership now allows MECS to provide mobile enterprises with even more security and compliance than ever before possible."
About Mobile Active Defense:
The award-winning Mobile Active Defense MECS Server Solution is the flagship product made by M.A.D. Partners LLC, The Smartphone Security Company. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA and with offices in San Jose, CA; London, England; and Mainz, Germany, the core team has almost 200 years of combined experience in security hardware and software product design and development, marketing, sales and support.
http://www.mobileactivedefense.com/
For more information, contact: Jackie Baumann (Email) or 941-266-3819
About RiskIQ™:
RiskIQ provides online intelligence tools that security, marketing, and legal teams behind the Fortune 50's most recognizable companies use to manage risk, detect and evaluate threats, and stamp out online fraud.
For more information, contact: Jenna Raby (Email)
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