A Brief History of Cell Phone Security

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A Brief History of Cell Phone Security

A decade ago, mobile devices were considered relatively safe from malware attacks, with PCs representing primary targets for hackers. Today, with smartphones nearly universal, thieves have turned their sights on mobile users. McAfee Labs detected 16 million mobile malware incidents in the first quarter of 2017, including 1.5 million new incidents. Ninety-four percent of companies anticipate that mobile attacks will increase, a Dimensional Research survey found.

But before the current wave of malware attacks, thieves were already targeted cell phones using other attack methods from the earliest days of mobile phones. Here’s how cell phone security has developed over the years.

Voicemail PIN Numbers

IBM employee Stephen Boies developed the first voicemail prototype in 1973, a Speech Filing System system that predated smartphones’ rise. The term “voicemail” was first used in 1980 by Televoice International (later Voicemail International), whose co-founder Paul Finnigan left a voicemail message on an Apple II desktop computer in 1978. In 1979, former Texas Instruments employee Gordon Matthews filed a patent for another voicemail system called Voice Message Exchange. During the 1980s, voicemail grew popular. Voicemail was widespread when cell phone use became widespread in the 1990s.

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From the beginning, voicemail was vulnerable to hackers. To access voicemail messages, the phone owner must dial a number and then enter a PIN to verify their identity. Most phones came with a default PIN that was easy to guess, leaving it up to the owner to change the number to a more complex one. This made it easy for hackers to call a phone owner’s number and guess the PIN.

Unfortunately, consumers continue to use easy-to-guess PINs, typically 1111 or 1234, according to a Cambridge University Consumer Laboratory study. To create a more secure PIN, choose a random number that is not a sequence of keys adjacent to each other and is not a number such as your birthday that can be guessed from ID cards in your wallet. Remember a random PIN; use the first letter of each number to spell out a phrase you can recall.

Caller ID and Blocking

Caller ID is another security technology cell phones inherited from traditional landlines. SITA communications engineer Ted Paraskevakos began developing the first caller ID technology in 1968. The prototype was built in 1976. Consumer trials began in 1984, and by the late 1980s, telecommunications companies were offering caller ID.

Mobile phones initially did not support caller ID, but providers such as Alltel began offering caller ID features for wireless phones as early as 2007. Blackberry introduced Truecaller caller ID services in 2009. In 2012, Android added enhanced caller ID apps that combined phone numbers and social media information.

Caller ID can help protect call recipients from scam artists. Still, it can also expose callers to security vulnerabilities, such as calling someone just met on a dating site who might be a potential stalker. To protect caller anonymity, landline providers quickly followed up caller ID with caller ID blocking, which is now available for blocking a number from appearing when you call on an iPhone or Android device. For most devices, you may be able to block your number by default in your settings. Otherwise, you can dial *67 before dialing the number you wish to call.

Phone Unlocking Features

Mobile phone manufacturer Neonode invented the idea of swiping to unlock screens in 2005. In 2009, Android 2.0 introduced a new lock screen controlled by the gesture, rather than by pressing the phone’s menu button as with previous versions. Apple’s 2011 iOS 5 update gave iPhone users access to the phone’s camera directly from the lock screen by sliding after double-clicking the home button.

Any user with a finger could unlock lock screens, so mobile phones began supplementing them with other unlocking features for stronger security. Apple initially required 4-digit passcodes for unlocking iPhones, but these were too easy to guess, so with the 2015 iOS 9 updates, Apple increased the default passcode length to six digits. Pattern locks and fingerprint scans added additional layers of security. Most recently, smartphones have begun using other biometric authentication methods. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processors use the Haven security platform, which supports user authentication through iris and facial recognition, in addition to using artificial intelligence for hardware-based malware detection.

A Brief History of Cell Phone Security