The smartphone use is increasing rapidly in India. As per the new GSMA study "'The Mobile Economy: India 2015" India has surpassed 500 Million Unique Mobile Subscribers and the Mobile Industry Accounts for 6.1 % of India's GDP. As per the study, 13% of world's mobile subscribers live in India. And the future growth in the number of mobile subscribers is going to outperform the global average in the coming years and India will soon become world's second largest mobile market, to be exceeded only by China. India is going to see about 500 million mobile subscribers by the end of this year and is expected to have about 734 million subscribers by 2020.
Among the various factors driving this rapid growth is the availability of many low-cost mobile options provided by several international and Indian brands. The homegrown smartphone manufacturing ecosystem and Indian government's Make In India initiative is fueling this growth. Many international brands are racing ahead to establish their manufacturing units within India, further helping in lowering the costs of the smartphones and aiding the growth.
The mobile broadband networks are going to see quick advancement too in the coming years. In India, 3G services were launched only in 2009 and the 4G network is still at an early stage. But mobile broadband network (3G/4G) is expected to reach 42 % of the total by 2020.
Another good news is that India's mobile industry is working as a major player in the recently launched Digital India initiative. And it is also helping in economic growth and job creation. In 2014, the mobile industry made a contribution of INR7.7 lakh crore to the Indian economy. This contribution is set to double up and reach upto INR14 lakh crore by 2020, representing 8.2 per cent of projected GDP.
As good as all this sounds, the growth in smartphone use and mobile broadband also means increased security threats. More and more hackers are targeting smartphone users and unleashing all sorts of attacks. Smartphones with older versions of Android are more at risk. But alarmingly, even iPhones aren't safe any more.
The Stagefright22 (CVE-2015-3824) vulnerability in Android allows cyber criminals to install malware simply by sending malicious Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages. About 94.1% of the Android devices were found to be at risk of this July. Trendmicro also found a bug in the Android OS that had the capacity of making the phones go silent and become incapable of making calls or sending messages. About 50% of Andriod devices were found to have this flaw. Another vulnerability could cause the Android to start rebooting endlessly and allow the attackers to run malicious code on them.
In response to the increasing attacks on Android devices, Google has announced regular security updates for the Android platform. However, without the support of phone manufacturers and carriers, the timely delivery of security patches may not be always possible and the fragmented nature of Android platform will keep on making it vulnerable.
However, it's not just Android devices that are vulnerable. iPhones aren't safe either. Modified versions of app-creation tools like Xcode and Unity have shown that even Apple's security can be breached and even iPhones can get attacked by mobile malware.
All this shows that there is an urgent need for more integrated security strategies. The users also need to be careful and stay away from the temptations like downloading paid apps and media for free. Always read carefully the app permissions before installing even from Google Play. Also check the download stats and user reviews. It is also a good idea to check the developer's website to make sure the app is authentic and not a duplicate version of a popular app. And since there are now various security apps available, many of them free, one can always download one of them and make the smartphones safer.