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Vodafone strikes deal with BAE Systems

Vodafone has won a supply deal to BAE as part of the pair's strategic partnership

UK operator group Vodafone has struck a five-year deal with British defence firm BAE Systems. The two have penned a partnership to provide businesses with a range of advanced communications security products and services for smartphones and tablets. BAE Systems has also selected Vodafone as its preferred supplier of mobile communications worldwide, excluding the US.

Commerzbank adopts visual security tool for mobile payments

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Commerzbank has adopted a visual transaction signing tool from UK security firm Cronto for its online banking customers, designed to protect against Trojan malware.

Mobile security: a moving target

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Mobile and NFC payment technologies have been on the rise in recent years. But with many merchants and retail outlets still reluctant to invest in the new technologies, and with the rise of fraud in existing solutions, industry participants are divided over how and whether the technology will ever gain widespread acceptance in developed markets.

Operators can reinvent themselves as the industry’s innovators

Telecoms firms need to move fast to reinvent themselves

The world’s major telecoms operators are seeing their business squeezed by new firms, many of which offer services that make use the operators’ networks, but bring little or no benefit to the operators themselves. In areas where networks once made most of their money, margins continue to shrink. In the face of this competition, telecoms firms need to move fast to reinvent themselves and grow their profits.

While the future may seem bleak, the established telecoms operators have two trump cards up their sleeves: saleable Big Data and customer trust. If they play them in the right way, they’ll help transform the companies back into the industry’s innovators.

Operators losing millions to spam, claims ex-GCHQ official

Operators stand to lose millions through fraud, claims COO at Adaptive Mobile

Operators stand to lose between $1m to $2m over a one to three day period, as a result of fraudulent SMS campaigns, according to an ex-GCHQ official. Gareth Maclachlan, now COO at Adaptive Mobile, a firm he co-founded, said that cyber-criminals have been carrying out spam and phishing campaigns in the PC/fixed-line internet world for years, but are seeing even bigger opportunities by targeting mobile operators, due to the way the mobile ecosystem is set up.

Ariad Next: Beating fraud

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Marc Norlain, CEO & co-founder of Ariad Next, talks to telecoms.com about the growing threat operators face in terms of fraud at the point of sale and how to combat it. By removing much of the paper-based subscription process, Norlain describes an additional benefit in terms of cost saving.

Twitter snaps up security specialist

Whisper helped protestors organise during the Arab Spring

Social site Twitter has acquired a small mobile security firm specialising in secure tools for Android. The purchase seems a strange fit but it has been suggested that the talent that comes with the company is what Twitter is really after.

Vodafone among sites targeted in hacking attacks

TurkGuvenligi carried out attacks on several websites on what it called World Hacking Day

A number of high-profile websites were hacked on Sunday by a Turkish hacking group TurkGuvenligi, who have described the 4th of September as ‘World Hackers Day’.

Taiwan to ban Huawei kit

Taiwan follows India and the US in raising concerns over Huawei's links to Chinese security services

Taiwan has become the lastest market to voice concerns over the use of network equipment from Chinese vendor Huawei, with the regulator—the National Communications Commission—ruling that core network kit may not be cleared for use by Taiwanese operators because of national security worries. Huawei has met with similar objections recently in India and the US.

Keeping a close eye

Chris Burke

Former Vodafone UK CTO Chris Burke talks about the importance of employee monitoring within mobile operators as the quantity of sensitive customer data held by the operators increases exponentially.

NTT Docomo selects Gemalto secure tech for Japan LTE roll-out

Gemalto expects the UICC cards to be used by more than 15 million DoComo LTE subscribers over the next three years

Security vendor Gemalto has said that its LTE technology, dubbed Xi, has been selected by NTT DoComo for the Japanese carrier’s LTE roll-out.

Cyber security: an opportunity to plug leaks without waiting for a ‘digital Pearl Harbor’

RIM extended an offer to the Indian Government under which the Canadian firm would lead an industry forum “focused on supporting the lawful access needs of law enforcement agencies while preserving the legitimate information security needs of corporations and other organizations”

Cyber security is receiving more than its fair share of attention at the moment. A major national security review by the UK government attracted attention this week by naming cyber attacks as a major security threat. This follows in the footsteps of the US where the National Security Agency and Department of Defense have also been focusing on the issue for some time now.

Intel acquires security software firm McAfee for $7.68bn

Intel says the move will hellp it address the billions of internet-ready devices, including mobile and wireless devices, TVs, cars, medical devices and ATM machines as well as the accompanying surge in cyber threats. The chip giant said providing protection to a diverse online world requires a fundamentally new approach involving software, hardware and services.

RIM carries Torch for BlackBerry 6; security wins

In a slider form factor the Torch is making the most of BlackBerry 6 by packing a hard keypad as well as a full touchscreen

Tuesday’s launch of the BlackBerry 6 OS, Research In Motion’s new flagship operating system and accompanying hero device – the Torch – was overshadowed by ongoing privacy concerns over the RIM network in the Middle East and India.

Security experts poke theoretical holes in 3G encryption

Security experts poke theoretical holes in 3G encryption

Security researchers on Wednesday suggested that the future encryption protocol deployed to protect 3G (UMTS/WCDMA) phone calls is as weak as the existing, and potentially flawed, system used for 2G telephony.