A recent article in the Homeland Security Newswire talks aboutthe military’s increasing use of smartphones on the battlefield and the challenge of making the phones secure enough (yeah updating your Facebook status to “we’re at the new mountain firebase” might not be the best idea). Here’s the thing though, why is it only the military concerned about how secure their smartphones are? What about the rest of us? Don’t we deserve secure apps too?
Well, we think so.
Sure, there are at least two facets to the problem of smartphone security: the OS and the apps. While, mobile OS makers are always trying to make sure that their devices are protected from threats, but as Pwn2Own recently showed devices are still vulnerable to hacking (sure so are all our machines, actually) I think less attention is being paid to making apps secure as well. Well, not only securing apps but also making secure apps for our own communications. As much as I love my iPhone, I know that it isn’t the most secure device in the world for storing sensitive documents.
But why isn’t it?
Why can’t I have an app that lets me encrypt documents on my device? Why can’t I have an app that lets me easily set up a secure connection to a server (yes, I know I can turn on a VPN connection, but that isn’t something easy for people to do)? Why can’t I have an app for secure communications?
Oh, wait, actually you can have the last one.
Both our apps eCrypt Mobile Mail Privacy and eCrypt.me work great on mobile devices. They were, in fact, designed for mobile apps. Mobile Mail Privacy is a BlackBerry app that integrates right into the built-in Mail app and eCrypt.me works great in all the mobile browsers we’ve thrown at it.
See, we don’t think that only the military, governments, or super spies should have access to strong encryption and secure messaging. We think everyone should be able send and receive emails that can only be read by the intended recipient. We don’t think that this is really too much to ask. One of the challenges the military is facing is finding apps that are designed to be secure, so they have to build themselves. Chances are, however, that those apps aren’t a) going to filter down to the rest of us or b) be easy to use. We’re going around that issue and releasing secure messaging that everyone can use (even the military) and is also very easy to use.
Interested? You can try eCrypt.me now (it works on all OSes and browsers) or Mobile Mail Privacy for BlackBerry and you too can send messages so secure you’ll make the military jealous.