Dark Side Arises for Phone Apps

Wall Street Journal: As the number of available smartphone apps has surged past 250,000 and the number of people who use them continues to grow, security isn't keeping up. "Mobile phones are a huge source of vulnerability," said Gordon Snow, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Division. "We are definitely seeing an increase in criminal activity."

The U.S. Air Force, whose officers use Blackberries, say that attacks on its phones have grown from less than a dozen per month a year ago to more than 500 last month. As a result, the Air Force now prevents its users from downloading apps.

"We all see this tipping point coming," said Verizon's Peter Tippett. "There is a lot of activity to figure out how to make it less likely that a financial transaction would be exploited" on a smartphone.