It’s all fun tapping onto your iPhone or Android games until you realise that you unintentionally let spyware and/or viruses into your phones and tablets. You can trust the Angry Birds, Clash of Clans and other renowned games from established publishing parties, but what about exploits found in SIM cards and fake iPhone chargers? Or a Flappy Bird clone filled with trojan viruses? Or god forbid, the Heartbleed vulnerability?
Trend Micro is on the ball as it has just released its Dr. Safety mobile security app for the whole of Asia Pacific. The app boasts six different kinds of security features.
These include safeguard game account (scans apps and files so that they are clean), safeguard privacy (spots which apps steal personal info), anti-phishing (blocks dirty sites that phish), anti-theft (finds a lost device’s info), anti-disturbance (blacklists suspicious contacts), and secure certified games recommendation (bouncer programme that sifts out the legit to the uncertified).
Not only that, it also improves a user’s Facebook privacy and helps detect malicious apps that steal information. Interested parties can check out the Google Play version.
Trend Micro is also setting up the Safe Gaming Alliance together with game development partners to help spread awareness of mobile gaming cybercrimes. Notable companies teaming up for this include gumi Asia, Gamiana, Games Solution Centre Singapore, Monkey Wrench Games, and AppXplore. gumi Asia’s CEO said that the company believes in making the security-focussed joint venture work, and is happy to be a part of an ongoing effort in making the gaming environment safe for all.
As an aside, Trend Micro also revealed some statistics on Asian mobile gamers just to drive the point home on the importance of mobile security. The company did a survey on 2,000 respondents from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
– Turns out that less than half of surveyed parents and guardians are aware of their children’s mobile gaming habits, with Singapore having the least amount of people aware with 23 per cent.
– The country whose parents are more aware about their child’s mobile gaming habits? The Philippines with 59 per cent. That’s not reassuring as that’s slightly more than half.
– To match up with the aforementioned numbers, the Philippines is the top country that downloads the most mobile games on a weekly basis.
– If you think that users all over Southeast Asia prefer their apps free more than anything, think again: 63 per cent of Thai mobile gamers are fine spending more than US$10 on games. Both Singaporean and Filipino gamers are alright spending no more than US$2 on games; 80 per cent of the former, 71 per cent of the latter.
– On the flip side, 45 per cent of Indonesian gamers prefer paying for free-to-play games.
These growing numbers prove that playing games on the iPhone is no safer than playing them on a PC, as both are susceptible to malicious users with their homebrewed viruses and trojans. Check the bottom for the full infographic:
