U.S Invests Security of their Mobile Devices

This move for me seems illogical. In a rather unanimous move, The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have now asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain about the methods they adopt to release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said.

The agencies have written to Apple Inc, AT&T Inc and Alphabet Inc, among others, in order "to better understand, and ultimately to improve, the security of mobile devices," the FCC said. The FCC seems to have sent letters to six mobile phone carriers on security issues, while the FTC ordered eight mobile device manufacturers including BlackBerry, Microsoft, LG Inc and Samsung Electronics to disclose "the factors that they consider in deciding whether to patch a vulnerability on a particular mobile device."

The FTC also wanted to collect "detailed data on the specific mobile devices they have offered for sale to consumers since August 2013" and "the vulnerabilities that have affected those devices; and whether and when the company patched such vulnerabilities." Now, this might be in the wake of San Bernardino shootings which resulted in the FBI requiring Apple's assistance. Apple ultimately rejected and the case was solved after the FBI hired an Israeli firm to crack open the iPhone. The agencies are now opening the inquiry about how mobile carriers and manufacturers handle security updates for mobile devices because consumers and businesses are conducting a growing amount of daily activities on mobile devices and new questions have been raised about how the security of mobile communications.

The "safety of their communications and other personal information is directly related to the security of the devices they use," the FCC said. "There have recently been a growing number of vulnerabilities associated with mobile operating systems that threaten the security and integrity of a user's device." In those letters, corporations which have been assumed to be informed are American networking carriers AT&T, Sprint, US Cellular and T-Mobile being some of them. It seems like all the companies that have been intimated have about 45 days of time to respond to the security agencies' requests.