Smartphone Security

Smartphones are becoming enriched with confidential information due to their powerful computational capabilities and attractive communications features. The Android smartphone is one of the most widely used platforms by businesses and users alike. This is partially because Android smartphones use the free, open-source Linux as the underlying operating system, which allows development of applications by any software developer. This research study aims to explore security risks associated with the use of Android smartphones and the sensitive information they contain; the researcher devised a survey questionnaire to investigate and further understand security threats targeting Android smartphones.Research findings indicated that Android smartphones lack proactive security measures to provide adequate protection against emerging malware attacks; they also showed that Android apps impose the most imminent security risks, especially because Google Android does not deploy security policies to recognize legitimate apps from malicious ones. Hackers, in turn, have exploited this security flaw and have passed harmful apps into the Android Market.