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As enterprises push ahead with mobile-first strategies -- and employee smartphones and tablets increasingly become business tools -- the importance of mobile threat defense (MTD) is growing.
Using mobile threat detection and defense, however, is no small task; the technology must cover applications, networks and device-level threats to iOS and Android phones and tablets to be effective.
"We talk about mobile threat defense, rather than detection - the reason being these solutions not only detect, but also can prevent and remediate threats," said Dionisio Zumerle, research director for mobile security at Gartner.
The MTD market is growing in terms of adoption, and has started to attract attention from endpoint protection platform (EPP) vendors and in other related markets, according to a recent report from Gartner.
By 2019, mobile malware will amount to one-third of total malware reported in standard tests, up sharply from 7.5% of malware today, according to Gartner's Market Guide for Mobile Threat Defense Solutions. By 2020, 30% of organizations will have MTD in place, up from the less than 10% who have it in place this year.
There is still a lot of confusion and uncertainty from end users regarding which risks MTD addresses and how urgent or useful it can be, Gartner said.
Mobile application "reputation solutions," which are used to perform app vetting, are converging with MTD in a single solution.
Machine learning plays a crucial role in threat detection
Additionally, machine learning has emerged as a foundational technology in mobile threat detection, even though it has only been around for...