What does it take to protect against mobile threats in your organization? Mobile is a separate animal and needs to be protected accordingly. Let’s cover some of the challenges faced when securing a mix of corporate and BYOD mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, and rugged handhelds.

Phishing and web content

The most prevalent mobile threat is phishing. The small form factor of mobile with shortened URLs lends itself to higher click-throughs on malicious content. Phishing often incorporates social engineering campaigns designed to harvest credentials and bypass protections including MFA. Did you know most phishing sites are designed for mobile? Threat actors use a variety of tactics including voice calling (vishing), SMS messages (smishing), and QR codes (quishing) to push end users to malicious sites. Mirrored 2FA pages and MFA bombing are often employed to trick users into giving up their username, password, and MFA authentication code.  

A Spoofed Okta sign in page; part of the CryptoChameleon phishing kit and social engineering campaign targeting the FCC.

Device vulnerabilities and misconfigurations

Outdated operating systems; unsupported, unpatched older devices; jailbroken or rooted devices, and zero-day threats are common issues faced by mobile security teams. With insight into how prevalent these issues are in your environment; you can prioritize remediation efforts and know when aging hardware introduces risk into your organization.

Leaky and malicious apps

Is that app bad or just behaving badly? Sometimes malware is overt – perhaps your end users sideload a bad app from the third-party app stores that emerged in connection with the EU Digital Markets Act. Alternatively, a formerly benign app can morph itself into a bad app via subsequent updates. Next, a malicious mobile app could makes its way into an official play store. In other cases, a consumer app is leaky or compromised and does not behave well. It’s important to be aware of both malicious apps as well as leaky apps, which can exfiltrate too much data, including location data You don’t have a lot of control over the consumer app supply chain; thus, monitoring app behavior and setting limits is a smart way to prevent breaches.

This new spyware was discovered by Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense technology partner Lookout.

Unsecured and rogue networks

Machine-in-the-middle attacks are a technique used to intercept traffic between devices and public Wi-Fi networks. Threat actors target a specific location, spoof a network, then simultaneously capture and relay the communications. Network risk applies to phones roaming across cellular and Wi-Fi networks, as well as mobile devices behind corporate firewalls, where device-based protection can provide defense in depth against network misconfigurations. Network spoofing can be easily executed when bad actors put pen testing hardware - aka pineapples - to work. 

Are you behind the times?

Leading cybersecurity frameworks and standards organizations are calling for organizations to bolster their mobile security. Are you taking action accordingly? Resources include the CISA issued consumer and organizational mobile security checklists; NIST published official mobile security guidance; and documentation from other international agencies such as ENISA.  Is mobile security a sleeping giant in your organization? More in this podcast. 

Addressing mobile risk is imperative in 2025

Today mobile threats are ever present. In a survey of 600 professionals responsible for buying, managing, and securing mobile devices:

• 85% say that risks from mobile device threats have increased in the past year
• 64% believe that they are at extreme or significant risk from mobile device threats
• 51% have experienced mobile app-related incidents from factors such as malware or unpatched vulnerabilities

Source: Verizon 2024 Mobile Security Index

We can help

Mobile is a requirement for today’s modern workforce. Threat actors are prioritizing mobile in their efforts to steal information and access internal systems. By addressing risk, you can help employees stay productive and leverage both corporate as well as BYOD mobile work models.

A simple way to assess your risk is to try our mobile security solution in your production environment (we call that a proof of concept). By implementing in a live environment, you can get actual risk information and statistics associated with your fleet. You can also respond to risk through end-user driven actions as well as IT-side automated responses and updates. If you’d like to better understand the mobile risk in your organization, contact your Omnissa sales representative and ask about Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense.