hackNY Summer Series : Dan Guido

In this post 2011 hackNY Fellow Akarshan Kumar describes the hackNY Summer Series lecture by Dan Guido.On Thursday, June 16, 2011, we had Dan Guido as a speaker. Guido is a consultant with the New-York based computer security firm iSec.His talk was focused on mobile security: How malicious apps can gain control of our smartphones, the different vectors today through which unauthorized access can be gained to others' machines, and, perhaps most relevant to us, how our own apps should look out for other apps acting up since our app's sandbox doesn't make it immune to having its (potentially sensitive) data stolen.Interestingly, he called iOS very safe, saying that over time, Apple has built in a number of barriers to prevent people from mucking around. Android, on the other hand, has gaping security holes. He said he owned an Android phone but will get the iPhone 5 the day it comes out. Although I had some intuition that Apple's iOS was pretty well-rounded compared to Android, I didn't really know that this polish extended to the security side as well.http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackny/sets/72157626868379293/show/It was an interesting talk, and gave those of us working on mobile applications something to think about. Smartphone growth is exploding, and this is the time we most need to make sure that people are careful with their personal data.