Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Fed Tech Talk’s audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne.

The COVID-19 crisis has challenged federal information professionals in many ways. People think of working remotely and having systems scale to meet that need. Very few have looked at the attack surface when it is expanded to our smartphones. There are some estimates that telework capacity quadrupled during the crisis; this increase is in the use of smartphones right beside the computer.

When it comes to phones, we are not sitting in an office with a large screen in front of us. If we see something that is suspicious, we can normally avoid it. However, the nature of a mobile phone means that the person is on the move, the screen is smaller, and one can make mistakes easier in this environment.

Bob Stevens, vice president, Americas at Lookout joined host John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk for a discussion on cybersecurity for the federal government to our phones.

Lookout has provided a “2020 Mobile Phishing Report” that talks about some of the risks with phishing attacks on phones using good old email. Mobile devices also mean new attack vectors. Steven mentions the shocking increase in phishing attacks that were not email-based. Malicious actors are using text messaging and apps to attack federal workers.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.