syssec_red_book

8.6. Example Problemserated anomaly alerts to feed an accurate mobile security dashboard that helpsin the understanding and management of new mobile malware outbreaks.8.6 Example ProblemsSmartphones are a relatively new technology and, although they were originallydesigned with security principles in mind, they have been shown to beas vulnerable as traditional computing devices.As mentioned above, effective and evasion-resistant ways to detect orcontain information leaks would be of paramount importance, especially in acontext where such devices have access to sensitive personal and enterprisedata, while crossing the boundaries between a number of different networks.It is clear, in fact, that existing techniques, such as taint tracking, althougheffective in principle, are ill-suited when it comes to containing the effect ofmalicious computations; thus, novel solutions must be sought.Another interesting research direction would be to explore hardwaresupportedvirtualization solutions to physically separate processes in contextdependentscenarios, in order to enforce security policies automatically, withoutrequiring users’ approval.An orthogonal research direction would be to explore instead the possibilityof analyzing network traffic from network operators, which offers a uniqueobservation point from which (malicious) behaviors may be inferred andsecurity or containment policies enforced.65