ABSTRACT

VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT

The level and diversity of cyber threats that citizens, companies, public authorities and society in general is currently facing is unprecedented and all forecasts indicate that it will tend to get worse, due to multiple factors.

Of particular concern is the fact that mobile platforms for personal and professional usage, like smartphones and tablets are increasingly present in today’s society. Companies are slowly adopting BYOD (bring-your-own-device) policies, integrating user’s devices into their infrastructure and using new professional applications in their daily activities. Although major platforms like Android and iOS try to establish some security in their architecture, the proliferation of malware in the official application distribution channels, as well as speculation about pre-installed malware at factory level, has demonstrated that current security levels are insufficient and current vulnerability assessment methods are inappropriate for the current level of threats.