Sprint also partners with Good Technology to offer additional security protection for mobile devices. In addition, it offers mobile security solutions from Lookout Mobile and McAfee and is moving toward a similar partnership with Symantec, Yarkosky said. "Our open philosophy is not to select one and force customers to use it. We want customers to be able to go with the names that are familiar," he said.
The Mobile Security Council, co-founded by Sprint, also includes industry leaders such as Cisco Systems, IBM, Juniper Networks, Lookout, Motorola and Samsung. Although Sprint is the only carrier on the council, a spokesperson said they expect other carriers to eventually join.
The goal of the council is for the different players in the mobile space to work together and share information about watching for security threats and jointly responding to attacks when they occur, Yarkosky said. "It’s a collaborative effort of multiple companies and we ask them to take off their corporate hats when they walk in the room.
"Our doomsday scenario is that we have 10 million or 14 million Android devices out there and one day somebody knows how to brick them all," he said, referring to a colloquial term for an attack that renders a smartphone or tablet computer unusable. Once a threat is discovered by one antivirus software provider or one carrier, the council would share that information with their counterparts so that a plan could be devised to head off the threat.
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