New RSA Service Helps Customers Detect and Shut Down Rogue Mobile Apps

LAS VEGAS, July 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- BLACKHAT 2012 Conference --

News Summary:

• Rapid growth of app stores for mobile devices has received significant attention from consumers, businesses and fraudsters alike.
• Mobile apps have emerged as a new cybercrime attack vector for phishing and malware.
• RSA FraudAction Anti Rogue App Service is a new managed service designed to detect and take action against malicious/unauthorized mobile apps that silently infiltrate online app stores.
• The service monitors all major app stores for all mobile operating systems, detects and shuts down malicious apps that are targeting customers to help reduce end user credential loss, financial fraud as well as damage to organizations' brand equity.

Full Story:

To counter the emergence of malicious and unauthorized apps appearing on mobile app stores, RSA, The Security Division of EMC (NYSE: EMC), today introduced the RSA FraudAction™ Anti Rogue App Service designed to detect and take action against rogue mobile apps that attempt to serve up malware or phishing attacks.

RSA FraudAction Anti Rogue App Service is an anti-fraud solution designed to detect and shut down rogue mobile apps.  By combining the industry's most experienced anti-fraud experts with a proven, propriety threat-detection infrastructure, RSA helps organizations obtain visibility into the mobile app landscape, giving their fraud teams the ability to understand this new threat vector. RSA's new service helps organizations discover fraudulent mobile apps that are leveraging customer brands to infect end users or steal credentials. RSA's proactive approach helps ensure online app stores are constantly monitored and action is taken against rogue mobile app threats.

According to multiple research reports, the risk to mobile device security is increasing:

• 71 percent of organizations allow their employees to use their own mobile devices for company business. (Source: GI mSecurity Survey Report, April 2012,  Goode Intelligence)
• 86 percent of all Android malware is actually repackaged versions of legitimate apps, but with malicious payloads. (Source: Android Malware Genome Project, Department of Computer Science at the North Carolina State University)
• Number of malicious Android apps jumps to over 20,000 in July 2012. (Source: TrendMicro TrendLabs Jul 2, 2012)

• Proactively manages risk to business by providing visibility into mobile app-based threats.
• Reduces fraud loss by shutting down rogue apps to help minimize impact of mobile app-based attacks to customer base.
• Provides comprehensive app store monitoring for all major app stores.

Available immediately worldwide, RSA will launch the RSA FraudAction Anti Rogue App Service in its booth at the BlackHat 2012 Conference in Las Vegas. More information can be found at: www.emc.com/security/rsa-identity-protection-and-verification/rsa-fraudaction/rsa-fraudaction-antirogue-service.htm

RSA Executive Quote:
Dan Schiappa, RSA Senior Vice President, Identity & Data Protection
"We're finding that organizations offering legitimate mobile apps used for online banking, retail, gaming and other functions aren't prepared and are mostly unaware of the mobile app threats lurking in app stores. Driven by RSA's experienced team of anti-fraud analysts, the RSA FraudAction Anti Rogue App Service is designed to help these organizations reduce fraud losses by monitoring for, rooting out and shutting down rogue apps before they can successfully exploit unknowing mobile consumers in an attempt to distribute malware and steal sensitive personal information for financial gain."

Analyst Quote:
Chris Hazelton, Research Director, Mobile & Wireless, 451 Research
"Since app stores are a primary source for mobile software, the large volume of new and updated applications regularly added to these stores makes it easy for cybercriminals to hide illicit activities within legitimate apps. Despite the best efforts of app store operators to police their own catalogs for rogue apps, the potential damage posed by a Trojan app using a company's brand image cannot be understated. Active monitoring of app stores will help organizations stay ahead of potential mobile app threats that leverage legitimate brands to target consumers for malware distribution and phishing."

Featured Resources:

Learn more about RSA Anti Rogue App Service

RSA Speaking of Security Podcast:
RSA Introduces RSA FraudAction™ Anti Rogue App Service to Combat Mobile-based Fraud - Podcast #236

Related RSA Blogs:
Malware…there's an app for that!
By Sam Curry, CTO, RSA Identity & Data Protection Group

Rogue Mobile Apps, Phishing, Malware and Fraud
By Limor Kessem, Technical Lead, RSA FraudAction Research Lab

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about how Trusted IT from EMC = Trusted Business at: www.emc.com/trust
• Connect with RSA via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and the RSA Speaking of Security Blog and Podcast.

About RSA

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps the world's leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges. These challenges include managing organizational risk, safeguarding mobile access and collaboration, proving compliance, and securing virtual and cloud environments.

Combining business-critical controls in identity assurance, encryption & key management, SIEM, Data Loss Prevention and Fraud Protection with industry leading eGRC capabilities and robust consulting services, RSA brings visibility and trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform and the data that is generated. For more information, please visit www.EMC.com/RSA.

EMC, RSA and FraudAction are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries.  All other products and/or services referenced are trademarks of their respective companies. 

SOURCE EMC Corporation