Lookout Mobile Security reported a 250% jump in smartphone malware from January to June 2011.
In addition, a Lookout mobile security report estimated that between a half million and a million Android users were infected by malware in the first half of 2011.
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"What this research found is really little cracks in Android -- not great big security holes you could drive a truck through, " said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder and chief technical officer of Lookout Mobile Security, a leading provider of security apps and services for Android devices.
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And for San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout, it may also be the year when the idea of going up against PC-focused security giants like McAfee and Symantec no longer seemed quite so insane.
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"More sensors on smartphones equals a lot more data flowing through these devices, which means protecting them is even more critical, " said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer at mobile security firm Lookout.
Six years later, Hering is the chief executive of a mobile security company called Lookout.
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Kevin Mahaffey, chief technologist at Lookout, has been researching mobile device security since the days when BlueTooth was cutting-edge.
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"With any new technology there are new ways for people to engage in fraud, " said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of mobile-security-software maker Lookout Inc.
But as the computing world shifts from PCs to mobile devices, Lookout has been able to trounce multibillion-dollar security giants like McAfee and Symantec without scaring people.
In July McAfee bought tenCube, a company that runs a mobile security service called WaveSecure that similar to Lookout can remotely locate phones, back up data or wipe it altogether.
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