News
comment from George Anderson, Director at Webroot around the ‘kill switch’ function being introduced in smartphones
June 2014 by George Anderson, Director at Webroot
“A ‘kill switch’ works by remotely sending a command to a stolen device to lock-down the OS. If properly architected, this renders the device pointless to a thief as they wouldn’t be able to unlock it. As such the “kill switch” can not only protect data on a stolen device, but actually act as a deterrent as thieves wouldn’t be able to do anything with the device. However, this demand to ‘brick’ devices (make them completely unusable) is excessive and there are better ways to protect mobile data – which is the real issue here.
“If you asked a person – what’s more precious to you, a device or the data on it? They would likely answer ‘data’. With that in mind, the ability to remotely lock and wipe devices is a good alternative to a ‘kill switch’ and is a security feature available already with Apple and Android from some mobile security vendors. The huge growth in mobile malware is just as worrying as mobile phone theft because the ability to recover or delete data is what most people care about. Data can be at risk even if the device itself is safe. There are numerous applications that steal confidential information without the owners knowledge or permission. What concern me is that we are yet to see phone manufacturers come together to tackle this problem in a similar way they have embraced the ‘kill switch’.”
