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Mobile security specialist Zimperium is releasing version 2.0 of its Mobile Threat Defense suite, offering network-level protection to Apple iOS devices.
The platform includes zIPS, a Mobile IPS app, which uses behavior-based detection on the device to defend against mobile attacks.
The zIPS engine utilizes machine learning technology to understand how a device normally functions during daily use, and uses this understanding to detect when it starts to behave irregularly, allowing it to detect both known and unknown threats.
The announcement follows the launch of zIPS on Android earlier this year, which brought both host and network on-device defense to Google’s mobile platform.
In addition to zIPS, Zimperium’s Mobile Threat Defense suite 2.0 also consists of zConsole, a cloud-based mobile threat management console, and zANTI, a mobile network penetration testing toolkit.
“Both Android and iOS are far from perfectly secure operating systems and still are relatively new. Each OS has its own strength and weaknesses, and it’s hard to say which is more secured since both iOS and Android are as strong as their weakest links, and both have critical vulnerabilities found in almost every major release,” Zuk Avraham, CEO and founder of Zimperium, told eWEEK. “Many people wrongly assume that Apple’s “walled garden” approach and curation of its App Store means that iOS devices are safe from all cyber-attacks.”
Additionally, Mobile Threat Defense 2.0 will see updates to zConsole. The mobile threat management console shows security officers actionable forensics about every incident during the lifetime of the devices – including where attacks happen, through what method and who the attacker is.
The forensics include more than 15 new parameters by proximity, time and more to help provide context around how an attack took place and hard evidence of the attack.
The platform also added reporting filters by severity, compliance level and attack type to locate specific mobile threat incidents within zConsole–like bringing critical-level events to the forefront, isolating compromised devices, locating specific types of threats and more.
“Personally, throughout my career, I’ve used my white-hat hacking capabilities as a way to uncover and report security vulnerabilities to vendors,” Avraham said. “Our advantage is that we know how the bad guys think, and we use this knowledge to protect our community and customers from the most sophisticated attacks. Much like a good policeman knows how a criminal may act, so they can stay one step ahead of them.”
Avraham said attackers are moving from the well-defended PC to relatively virgin mobile environments with lots of low-hanging vulnerabilities, with evidence for attacks that are happening in the wild all over the globe.
“What I fear the most is that the current attacks are going undetected with nearly zero percent risk for the attackers of getting caught,” he said. “Due to this environment, I expect to see more mainstream serious security breaches resulting from compromised mobile devices very soon.”