Navigation
21Vianet 2600Hz 3Com 3GPP 3Leaf 4G 4G licensing 5G Africa Alcatel Shanghai Bell Alcatel-Lucent Alibaba Android antiitrust Apple APT Satellite Arete AT&T auction backbone Baidu Bain bandwidth base station Battery broadband cable CBN CCP censorship Cfius China China brands China FTTH China hi-tech China market China media China Mobile China Mobile Hong Kong China Science China Telecom China Unicom chips Ciena Cisco civil society CNNIC Communist Party convergence copyright CSL cybersecurity Datang drones Egypt Elop Ericsson EU Facebook FDD LTE FDD-LTE feature phones Fiberhome FLAG forecasts Foxconn FTZ Galaxy S3 Google GSMA GTI handset handsets Hisilicon HKBN HKIX HKT HKTV Hong Kong HTC Huawei Hugh Bradlow Hutchison India Infinera Innovation Intel internet investment iOS iPad iPad 2 iPhone IPv6 ITU Japan KDDI KT labour shortage Leadcore low-cost smartphone LTE MAC MAE Mandiant market access Mediatek Meego Miao Wei Microsoft MIIT mobile broadband mobile cloud mobile data mobile security mobile spam mobile TV mobile web Motorola music MVNO MWC national security NDRC New Postcom Nokia Nokia Siemens Nortel NSA NTT DoCoMo OTT Pacnet Panasonic patents PCCW piracy PLA politics Potevio price war private investment Project Loon Qualcomm quantum Reach regulation Reliance Communications Ren Zhengfei Renesys RIM roaming Samsung sanctions Scania Schindler security shanzhai Sharp SKT Skype smartphones Snowden software Sony Ericsson spectrum Spreadtrum standards startups subsea cables subsidies supply chain Symbian tablets Tata Communications TCL TD LTE TD-LTE TD-SCDMA Telstra Trump Twitter urban environment USA US-China vendor financing Vitargent Vodafone New Zealand WAC WCIT Web 2.0 web freedom WeChat WhatsApp Wi-Fi Wikileaks Wimax Windows Mobile WIPO WTO Xi Guohua Xiaolingtong Xinjiang Xoom Youku YTL ZTE
« The unfortunate case of Ms Zhao | Main | What China's innovation gap tells us »
Thursday
May222014

Is malware taking over our smartphones? 

Are our mobile phones being swamped with malware?

 

Calgary startup Wedge Networks claims that as much as 90% of data uploaded from mobile phones is malware. What's more, says Wedge COO Steve Chappell, operators don't see it as a problem - “as long as customers are paying for their data.”

 

Wedge's figures are impossible to verify, but it does have some smart SDN-enabled data inspection technology that can peer into massive volumes of data in real-time.

 

Wedge has found that 89%-91% of data uploaded from Bharti Airtel users, and nearly 90% of data from customers of Thailand's TOT, is infected. Similar results were found in the data traffic of operators in other markets, Chappell said.


The malware does not pose a threat to handsets or users. “The aim is to be disseminated,” Chappell points out. But those who created the threats are exploiting the meagre level of security in consumer devices.

 

While operators are indifferent to the threat to users, they insist that the malware be removed before entering their backbones, reaping huge savings.

 

Chappell says by taking advantage of the flexibility of SDN, Wedge's solutions have the ability to scale enormously.  Indeed, the company has just landed a contract with an unnamed Middle East government to provide real-time 'web filtering' over a 40Gbps data stream - an impressive technology achievement (that it is being primarily used to block politically objectionable websites is less so).

 

The technology was developed by co-founders CEO Hongwen Zhang and chief scientist Husam Kinawi as postgrads at Calgary University.

 

Wedge has just completed a $10 million B funding round. Bell Canada, Mitsubishi and China data center firm 21 Vianet are customers, while Comcast is conducting proof of concept tests.

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>