Can There Be A Smartphone That Is Always Secure From Hacking – Or Is It A Mere Marketing Myth

Recent hackings of a high-profile order have left the mobile security experts in a quandary. But, can there be something like a phone that can never be hacked?

Some two decades ago, supercomputers costing several million dollars were touted as the fastest and most powerful devices in the digital world. But, today, the smartphones that you carry in your pocket are at least 10 times more powerful compared to the supercomputers.

With several thousand apps being written nearly every day by over a million developers (some of them potential hackers) with at least a percentage of them with little or no knowledge of security, the security floodgates are all open.  Add to this, the chips that drive sophisticated software supplied by companies around the globe and all of them carrying potential security bugs, the picture becomes perfect.

The complexity of mobile security is indeed mind-boggling and the vulnerabilities are only expected to grow with time - and not diminish in future.

That brings up the question - can there be a smartphone that cannot be hacked?

The answer is possibly a straightforward no and those who claim the opposite are either lying or are ignorant.

According to Gartner , there is a growing focus on mobile threat defense and all stakeholders are seriously engaged.  But, the stakeholders also include cyber criminals who continue to target mobile devices at an enhanced pace. As of today, the only way smartphone owners can assure themselves some level of security is by exercising great caution while downloading applications.  The gaming market, in particular, faces the highest level of susceptibility.

Sadly, a single scan cannot detect the malicious behavior of apps, particularly before it gets published on the app store.  Apps can also carry sleeper cells making it even more difficult for people who are trying to analyze the app for security aspects.as reported in Techcrunch.

Every successful hacking affects several thousand people before the trouble is spotted and fixed.