January 17, 2010 | Isn’t it crazy to think that not too long ago cell phones didn’t exist? Remember how big they used to be? And all the text messaging that started about 4 years ago? According to Nielsen, 203 million out of the 263 million U. S. wireless subscribers pay for text messaging. They estimate that 57% of all mobile subscribers over the age of 13 utilize text messaging on a daily basis. And the trend keeps increasing: the average number of text messages sent per month over the past 3 years has increased 351%. I cant wait for the time when my text messages have a SPAM box like my email. So with all this increasing talk of mobile communication, mobile applications, mobile web surfing; Has there been any discussion of mobile security? The security software industry has been anticipating the explosion of the mobile security market for years, but the inconvenient lack of effective malware for mobile operating systems has meant demand has been weak. According to market intelligence company ABI Research, that’s about to change: The number of smartphones using security software is set to increase fivefold over the next five years. The driver of this trend is enterprise, with mobile workers storing increasing amounts of sensitive data on their phones. Not only do they need to be protected from malware, but even bigger is the need to be physically protected in case the handset gets lost. Having personal information backed up and protected if the phone is lost or stolen is an important issue that most users don’t recognize when utilizing their mobile device. There are also things like data protection regulations, which impose compulsory requirements on some sectors like healthcare. Mobile security should be noted as a possible emerging trend over the next few years. It will be interesting to see what emerges from this industry in terms of companies and technology.