While Mobile World Congress is underway, Kaspersky Lab has highlighted an important aspect of using mobile devices – namely security – with the company’s release of its beta version Parental Control solution for smartphones and tablets on the Android platform.

Kaspersky Lab pointed out that with the explosive popularity of tablets and smartphone devices, particularly Android ones - accounting for 48% of smartphone sales worldwide, users are currently more connected than ever.

However, as the company has been positing for some time, this growth has a dark side to it.

“Hackers today have fast made their move towards using the Android platform for their own financial gain, resulting in increased targeted malware attacks towards mobile users of this platform,” stated Alexander Erofeev, head of Strategic Marketing and Brand Communication at Kaspersky Lab.  

“What is interesting to note however, is that in a recent study undertaken by Kaspersky Lab, in Germany and the US alone, in approximately 13% of the households surveyed, children have access to either their own or their parents’ mobile devices running Android, meaning that they too are able to access the internet and are therefore susceptible to such malware threats, among other unsolicited content,” he continued.

Parental control

In a bid to address this problem, the company’s Parental Control beta application enables parents to manage their’ children’s accessibility and thus make smartphones safer for their children. The company explained that the application offers parents visibility around how their children are using mobile phones and the content they are exposed to.

Key features include web filtering, which blocks sites with inappropriate content, such as pornography, violence and drugs and application control capabilities, which allows parents to control which applications can be run on their family’s Android devices.

Kaspersky Lab Parental Control for Android OS is currently available as a free beta application and can be downloaded by parents here.  

To the point

This is far from the first warning given by the company on the growing threat of malware. Nor is it the first time that Android has been identified as an attractive target for hackers and malware authors.