Page 44 - Security Today, January/February 2019

The Next Wave
External hardware is the next sidekick for smartphone security isolation
BOy Mike Fong
riginally designed as consumer devices, smartphones have become vital elements of both our personal and professional lives. Unfortunately, as sources and re- positories of our most sensitive data, smartphones have quickly become a primary attack surface for
hackers, cybercriminals and foreign spies. According to recent media stories of American intelligence reports, even the President of the United States is not safe from mobile espionage.1
As a result, smartphone makers have implemented security isola- tion within both the operating system (OS) and hardware, partition- ing the device’s apps and core processes as a means of limiting the potential damage caused by malware. Despite attempts to insulate critical data and functions from malicious outsiders, vulnerabilities at the heart of these mobile devices continue to chip away at an organi- zation’s ability to protect its most important digital assets. The solu-
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 | SECURITY TODAY
tion to this intractable problem may come from an unlikely source: external mobile hardware.
Wave 1: Isolation via the Operating System
Since the release of the app stores for both iOS (App Store) and Android (Android Market, now Google Play) in 2008, smartphone makers have implemented sandboxing as a means of security isola- tion, both for backend analysis while screening apps as well as for app isolation while running. A sandbox is an app’s restricted space within the OS, acting as the environment for code execution and data stor- age while also limiting the app’s access to system files and resources. App permissions controlled by the user grant access to the device features outside of the sandbox, including the user’s contacts, the de- vice’s location, its cameras and its microphones.
For Android, each app runs with a distinct user identity, with the
MOBILE APPS TECHNOLOGY
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