Survey on Mobile User's Data Privacy Threats and Defense Mechanisms

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, mobile devices have become an integral part of our daily life. These have proven to be an advantageous scientific invention that fillspersonal and business needs in a very efficient manner. In this era, the availability of mobile services has significantly increasedbecause of the rich variety of mobile devices and essential applications provided by mobile device manufacturers. At the same time, numerous mobile security issues and data privacy threats are challenging both manufacturers and users. Therefore, mobile devices are an ideal target for various security issues and data privacy threats in a mobile ecosystem. In this paper, we provide a brief survey of the security challenges, threats, and vulnerabilities of amobile ecosystem. Furthermore, we discussed some key points required to ensure mobile security and defend against data privacy threats. The emphasis of the discussion is, strong protection and the restriction of malicious activity at theapplication developer end, application stores end, and operating system and mobile device manufactures end bypreventing the user from usingnon-recommended applications (which may be malicious) and consideringbiometric features for the authentication of real users in the mobile devices. Alsobriefly discussing the defense mechanismsthat are considered to bea relatively better approach for securing personal and business related data or information in the mobile devices.