Targeting Phone Security Flaws

The exposure of prominent iPad users' email addresses and device IDs has underscored how security is becoming a bigger concern for mobile devices.

Consumers are snapping up gadgets like high-powered cellphones and Apple's tablet computer, and the cellphone industry is counting on them to drive its growth. Meanwhile, the list of holes computer researchers are finding in the devices and their software is growing. In 2009, security experts identified 30 security flaws in the software and operating systems of smartphones made by companies like Apple, Nokia Corp. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., up from 16 the previous year, according to a review of records in the National Vulnerability Database, a repository created in 2005 by an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Submissions are vetted and rated according to their severity.