SecureSMS, a product from CellTrust that promises a secure mobile environment for “critical information,” has won the Communication Solutions product of the year for 2008 from Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC).

SecureSMS is designed to help organizations in healthcare, financial services/banking, government, education, travel and mobile advertising to have the ability to exchange critical information with customers in a trusted environment on the mobile device.  Unlike traditional SMS communication, SecureSMS adds a multi-layer level of encryption and security to messages that contain more sensitive information.

Among other things, SecureSMS adds control to manage confidential information exchange via mobile devices, accountability with recipient confirmation when SMS is received and opened, enterprise level compliance without costly development or server infrastructure investment, carrier-ready compatibility with more than 710 carriers in over 217 countries and security with end-to-end encryption across the mobile ecosystem (i.e. carriers, tower operators, infrastructure providers or aggregators).

Working in conjunction with CellTrust’s “SecureSMS Gateway,” SecureSMS works by utilizing a micro client that installs on the handset to communicate with the SecureSMS Gateway.  The application is similar to a regular SMS editor and encrypts outgoing secure messages as well as decrypts incoming secure messages received via the SecureSMS Gateway. 

As more and more information is being shared via SMS from business to consumer or vice versa, especially information that’s private or extra-sensitive, security and an extra layer of protection will be vital.  Products like this will only further the innovation surrounding SMS, so its no wonder they won the product of the year when it comes to mobile technology solutions.

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As an ever growing number of people across the world continue to access the internet and download files with their handsets, instances of mobile viruses are similarly increasing.

According to a survey released this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, only 2.1 percent of those questioned had been the victim of a mobile virus and only 11.6 percent knew someone who had been affected by one.

The survey, which was conducted by IT security specialist McAfee, polled two thousand people in North America, Europe, and Asia. Although 86.3 percent had no experience of mobile phone viruses, it was discovered that virus attacks in Japan - the “most developed mobile phone market in the world” - were far more routine than anywhere else. In fact, the report suggested that “intentional acts of mobile virus planting,” or “mobile terrorism,” could become a worldwide epidemic in the coming years.

As a result, some within the mobile marketing industry have begun speculating that mobile phone virus safeguards or other similar software may soon appear as a featured component of mobile phones released as early as next year.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw this problem growing,” said Graham Cluley, a consultant at Sophos, an IT security firm, “The mobile phone is quickly growing into a sort of mobile computer.”

www.mobilephoneviruses.com, which tracks known cases of mobile phone viruses, lists examples such as Skulls, Velasco and Commwarrior, which reportedly infected more than one hundred thousand cell phones in Europe last year. Although the virus almost exclusively attacked phones running Nokia’s Symbian operating system, it spread like wildfire through text messages containing audio, video and picture files.

“Viruses aren’t a huge issue now,” said Pete Nuthall, a telecom analyst at the Forrester market research company, “but they have the potential to be so in the future when Internet use is more widespread.”

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In a Vistalike delay, Symantec is pushing back the release until December. TechWorld has the scoop� here. I’ve not been able to confirm this on the Symantec web site though and I’ve checked their Press Releases� and the latest wire.

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