Mobile phones may not present a huge malware risk to the enterprise network yet, but security pros predict the devices eventually will become big targets. Experts outline four trends that will impact the way in which businesses deal with mobile threats, in an article by Rob Lemos at InformationWeek.

Until now, smartphones were not particularly attractive targets for criminals because they did not make up a large portion of the mobile market, there were relatively few platforms and generally the data on the devices wasn't of great value, said Charlie Miller, principal consultant at Accuvant. But these characteristics are all changing, and the result will make smartphones a bigger target.

"As more people put sensitive data on their phones or use their phones to do sensitive things, like banking or shopping online, then slowly the malware authors and cybercrminal-type guys are going to go after the devices," Miller said.

To mitigate the complexity of securing corporate information on smartphones that employees also use for personal use, there will be more options for separating personal data and programs from work data and programs, according to William Enck, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. Programs that run corporate data could operate in a separate virtual instance of the software. For now, the Balance for the BlackBerry keeps the personal and work aspects separate.

Experts also expect patching mobile software to become faster down the road. Today it can take many months for security patches to arrive on a phone because of the number of players--developer, manufacturer, carrier--involved.

Finally, security functions are becoming more entwined with location-based services. The most primitive example of this is remotely wiping a lost device. Other security applications can restrict the applications users can access depending on where they are.

For more:
- see Rob Lemos's article at InformationWeek

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