We have a growing number of smart platforms that are becoming established, each with its own market place for applications (Blackberry RIM, Nokia Ovi, Apple iPhone, Google g2, Vodafone 360) but we don’t have a security architecture that actually makes sense in terms of protecting end users against all the attacks that are common place on the Internet today. Securing the potentially massive amount of interactions using mobile devices is difficult because, typically, there will be no a priori shared information such as passwords, addresses, or PIN codes between the phone, its user, and the service they want to use.

Additionally, mobile devices often lack powerful user interfaces to support classical authentication methods. Personal content is indeed private but with emerging mobile payment and ticketing solutions, and the socialising of contact information, personal information is becoming even more highly sensitive. It’s only a matter of time before a massive loss of personal data, or identity theft happens on one of these platforms (or more than one) and the economic and technical fallout will be quite serious.