Mobile virus threats are real.
Theta Networks was the first company to identify virus threats on mobile networks in 2003 when Windows worms like MS-Blaster spread on GPRS networks and created outages in several major mobile operators by flooding unprepared mobile networks with malicious traffic. Theta Networks came up with a patented method to identify infected subscriber and propose innovative ways to automatically clean the virus from the infected computers.
Upon this first experience, Theta Networks was also the first one to identify MMS virus in the mobile core networks back in 2005 when CommWarrior started to spread in the wild. Thanks to its advanced Deep Packet Inspection technology applied for mobile data networks, Theta Networks was able to identify the threat and the infected subscribers. The patented method was also applied to clean the MMS virus from the terminals to mitigate the threat. Operators that have implemented Theta networks solution saw their virus traffic decrease significantly.
New malicious threats evolution.
Malicious threats have evolved over the time and have turned to malware types as opposed to pure viruses. With its special focus on end user experience management, Theta Networks pay particular attention to any malicious software that does create a negative impact to the end user's experience. Theta Networks is able to recognize malwares like FlexiSpy, which once installed on the terminal spy on the user's activities and send the activity logs (SMS, phone calls, etc.) to a 3rd party server.
Why MSP for mobile security is the best solution?
Some solutions on the market propose to install a 3rd party box after the SGSN or GGSN to filter and "cut the connection" when an MMS virus is found. Those solutions do not provide a long term viable solution to mobile operators for the following reasons:
- MMSC can discard the MMS virus and do the exact same job as the in-line box that “cuts the connection”.
- In-line boxes are not well accepted by operators because they delay traffic delivery and create a lot of performance problems in the core network. Several operators stopped using these solutions after some trials because performance was poor and created more problems than it solved. As a specialist of network performance management, Theta Networks also found out those boxes created serious performance flaw in the networks.
- These solutions do not identify the infected subscribers and do not take action for the terminal except cutting the transfer connection.
- Viruses are not cleaned from the terminal, they still keep sending again and again; and the in-line box keeps blocking them again and again. The air interface (the most expensive interface) is still wasted by this malicious traffic.
- In-line solutions are very expensive for little final benefits: viruses are still in the terminals and still keep being sent to the most expensive interfaces (radio, A-bis, Gb). Terminals continue to bear the cost of being infected: battery drainage, slow terminal and poor perceived performance for the end user.
MSP solves the virus problem at the root cause: the terminal!
1- MSP identifies virus traffic and matches it with the subscriber identification (MSISDN/IMSI). MMSC anyway discard the MMS virus because of its bad content type, so the virus doesn’t spread further.
2- MSP notifies the subscriber by SMS with URL to download virus cleaner.
3- Subscribers download the virus cleaner program and clean the virus.
4- MSP monitors if the susbcribers have really cleaned their terminal from the virus.
This complete method is patented. MSP is an automatic method to get rid of the virus traffic and monitor its mitigation success.
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