Tag Archives: mobile

News

Ontix Signs Agreement with Sutton Council to Support Pioneering Approach to Boosting Mobile Phone Coverage

London, UK – 16th February, 2022 Ontix, the company delivering Next-Generation Wireless Infrastructure-as-a-Service, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Sutton Council that will enable it to improve the mobile phone coverage across the borough, providing a real boost to residents and local businesses.

Building on initial plans to improve digital connectivity within the borough, the Council is keen to let operators such as Ontix use council-owned assets such as lamp posts to deploy new small cell mobile infrastructure. This will boost connectivity and improve user experience of mobile devices within the borough.

This new form of open access agreement, among the first of its kind in the UK, will enable faster connectivity and greater capacity for mobile networks, remedying pockets of patchy and congested mobile coverage known as ‘not-spots’ whilst providing an operational and commercial framework which prioritises the swift deployment of digital infrastructure when and where it is needed.

Deployments of small cells are due to start in early 2022. This work will also act as a foundation to pave the way for greater 5G coverage in Sutton, as part of the commitments made in the council’s Digital Strategy.

Councillor Sunita Gordon, Lead Member for Resources, said: “I’m pleased to see us making good progress to improve the digital connectivity within Sutton. This will be a huge boost to residents, particularly those living, working or visiting the so called ‘not-spots’, and will also be a very welcome improvement to our infrastructure for local businesses.”

Antony Tomlinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Ontix, said: “The events of the last 18 months have demonstrated how critical connectivity is to modern life, enabling businesses to adapt and creating the backbone on which a ‘new normal’ has been realised. We are delighted to be working with Sutton, who have helped us to develop this agreement and the operational relationships and processes that we need to enable us to deploy small cells – delivering high quality connectivity throughout the Borough to residents and local businesses, in places where previously it may have been thought impractical or impossible.”

As part of its Digital Strategy, Sutton Council has published an in-depth explainer of what 5G mobile technology means for the London Borough of Sutton.

News, Telecoms

AdaptiveMobile Security Discloses New Research on Mobile Network-Enabled Attacks in Hybrid Warfare

Company publishes research outlining emerging mobile network attack strategies in Hybrid Warfare including newly revealed HiddenArt mobile threat actor

Dublin, Ireland, and Stockholm, Sweden: February 9th, 2022 – AdaptiveMobile Security, an Enea company, and the world leader in mobile network security, today published new research titled; Spectrum of Violence: Mobile Network-enabled Attacks in Hybrid Warfare. The paper highlights how vulnerabilities in mobile network infrastructure could be weaponized in offensive military operations. Setting out how the combination of military and mobile telecom-enabled targeting capabilities can create a battlefield advantage; the paper illustrates the consistency of such a model with the concept of hybrid warfare.

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the usage of mobile networks for various cyber-attacks as part of a warfighting strategy. This research-based document outlines the risks of attacks on mobile networks in a hybrid warfare scenario, and also shares details of a mobile network threat actor designated as ‘HiddenArt’. The research includes recommendations for mobile operators, regulators, and government agencies on how to protect critical communication network infrastructure from weaponization by state-level threat actors, surveillance companies, and attacks by Organized Crime Groups (OCGs).

Leveraging AdaptiveMobile Security’s Signalling Intelligence Layer (SIGIL) solution for global insights into organized cyberattacks executed on mobile network infrastructure, it was observed that ‘HiddenArt’ actively sustains a capacity to remotely access the personal devices of targeted individuals around the world on an ongoing basis. Since detecting this threat actor, AdaptiveMobile Security has observed periodic reconnaissance activities in at least 7 target mobile networks around the world and given the wide geographic distribution of these targeted mobile operators, it is probable that the threat actor is active on a global scale.

“Malicious mobile network signalling attacks must be recognized as a state-level cyber threat to individual nations as well as to collective security, and an integral component of hybrid warfare”, says Cathal McDaid, CTO, AdaptiveMobile Security. “Given that mobile networks are part of the critical national infrastructure of a state, we aim to highlight the increasingly profound implications of vulnerabilities in telecom network infrastructure for the security and stability of societies, economies, and states.”

The paper demonstrates that malicious mobile network signalling attacks carry the potential to pose a significant national security threat to any country whose citizens are targeted over mobile networks when executed by a threat actor with the overall capability, persistence, and aggressiveness exhibited by ‘HiddenArt’. These attacks can become extremely impactful when used as part of a hybrid warfare strategy and could be deployed in a range of scenarios, including targeting of military personnel, interception of civilian communications and disruption of national mobile networks.

“In the cybersecurity world, trust in the restraint of a potential attacker is not an option. We are releasing this paper and highlighting these security risks with the intent of drawing the attention of the international community and to deter potential attack activity”, says Rowland Corr, Director of National Security Intelligence, AdaptiveMobile Security. “All states that are serious about national security need to prepare and protect from similar attacks on their critical communications infrastructure.”

News

The UK’s MEF Registry launches in Ireland and Singapore – significantly reducing the impact of Smishing & Spoofing by SMS

The Mobile Ecosystem Forum’s SMS Protection Registry, which was developed and piloted in the UK, is now being launched in Ireland and Singapore.

The Registry significantly reduces the impact of Smishing & Spoofing by SMS.  In the UK, many major banks and Government brands are currently being protected with 352 trusted SenderIDs registered to date. Over 1500 unauthorised variants are being blocked on an ever-growing list, including 300 senderIDs relating to the Government’s Coronavirus campaign.

Government agencies, including HMRC and DVLA, are participating in this ecosystem wide anti-fraud solution which is supported by BT/EE, O2, Three and Vodafone, along with the UK’s leading message providers including BT’s Smart Messaging Business, Commify, Dynamic Mobile Billing, Firetext, Fonix Mobile, IMImobile, Infobip/OpenMarket, mGage, Reach-Interactive, Sinch, TeleSign, Twilio and Vonage.

The cross-stakeholder working group has seen a significant drop in fraudulent messages being sent to the UK consumers of the participating merchants.

Following the success in the UK, The Ireland SMS SenderID Protection Registry is being launched with the support of all three Mobile Network Operators, nine Merchants, three major Government agencies, Banks, Retailers and Utilities.

The Registry is also launching in Singapore as The Singapore SMS SenderID Protection Registry.  With strong interest from numerous other territories, MEF expects new Registries will soon follow.

“There are millions of faked SMS sent by fraudsters trying to steal passwords every day. We need to help consumers and organisations fight back. Thanks to the collective efforts of the British mobile industry MEF has managed to show a way: a Registry for SMS short-code names. The fight against fraudsters is a relentless one, it will never stop. But we are happy to celebrate one successful tool created in the UK.” said Dario Betti, CEO of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum.

MEF’s SMS Protection Registry reduces the ability for fraudsters to send messages impersonating a brand in the message header, by checking whether the sender using that sender ID is authorised by the merchant/brand. If not, messages from this route are blocked as fraudulent, ensuring SMS remains a trusted communication channel for brands and consumers alike.

Sender IDs set up by fraudsters made up of misspellings and special characters aimed at impersonating a merchant or brand are also blocked via a ‘denied list’ circulated to messaging partners.

Text messaging scams, which trick consumers into sending money or sharing their account details with fraudsters, are known as ‘Smishing’ (or phishing by SMS). Criminals send bogus texts which appear to come from a trusted sender.

MEF’s SMS Protection Registry was established to automate cross-stakeholder processes, allowing reliable and fast sharing of information to facilitate an orchestrated blocking system.

The online Registry platform helps identify and block fraudulent SMS texts, protecting consumers, legitimate businesses and organisations falling victim to text messaging scams.

It enables organisations to register the sender IDs/message headers used when sending text messages to their customers. This limits the ability of fraudsters to impersonate a brand, as the Registry automatically checks whether the sender is the genuine authorised party.

Sometimes fraudsters create an exact copy or ‘spoof’ of a genuine merchant sender ID. These messages, when received by consumers, can be placed into existing message threads or conversations from the same target merchant on the customers smartphone – giving more credibility to the fraudulent message. The Registry works to reduce spoofing by registering the legitimate and authorised message sources.

Aside from using the Wholesale Messaging (Aggregator) delivery channels operated by Mobile Network Operates, scammers also send messages in bulk using ‘SIM farms’ that utilise normal SIM cards as used in mobile phones. These SIM farms are devices that operate several SIM cards at a time and can be programmed to exploit the ‘Unlimited Text’ capabilities offered on consumer tariffs – despite being in breach of the T&Cs of use for such consumer offerings. Messages sent from these devices can be easily identified and blocked by the Registry as they always originate from a regular mobile number rather a merchant/brand using alphabetic characters.

One of the most common scams over the last few months has been fake text messages pretending to be from Royal Mail. The message usually requests a small payment for a parcel to be delivered, with a link to a copycat Royal Mail website where victims are then asked to give their bank details.

These fake texts can also spread harmful malware, which once downloaded, gives the fraudster access to sensitive information on your device.

With the Mobile Ecosystem Forum’s SMS Protection Registry, everything stays the same for the consumer – all that changes is the reduction on Smishing texts. There are no additional steps for consumers to take, however consumers are strongly advised to stay vigilant and to react only to texts if they are expecting to be contacted, for example, you’ve just requested a one-time-PIN.

Consumers should be particularly wary of clicking on embedded links within texts and should contact their bank/merchant via the contact number on the back of their card if they are in any doubt before reacting to a text request.

Whilst the brands (such as postal services) suffer adverse PR, the Banking groups often bear the brunt of the financial losses experienced by consumers, as well as the adverse PR. Hence by reducing smishing the Registry provides benefits for many merchants, as well as consumers.

ABOUT MEF

MEF (Mobile Ecosystem Forum) is a global trade body established in 2000 and headquartered in the UK with members across the world. As the voice of the mobile ecosystem, it focuses on cross-industry best practices, anti-fraud and monetisation. The Forum provides its members with global and cross-sector platforms for networking, collaboration and advancing industry solutions.

To learn more, visit https://mobileecosystemforum.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

News

Liftoff and Vungle join forces to form leading independent mobile growth platform

Merging complementary technologies creates one of the world’s largest integrated mobile growth platforms to power the $500 billion global mobile app ecosystem

Liftoff, a leading global performance-based mobile app marketing optimisation platform, and Vungle, a leading global mobile app discovery and enablement platform, announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine. The merger will create one of the world’s largest independent and privacy-friendly platforms that fuels the entire mobile app growth cycle across user acquisition, engagement, monetisation, and analytics. Liftoff co-founder and CEO Mark Ellis will lead the combined company as CEO and Vungle CEO Jeremy Bondy will be assuming the role of President. The transaction follows prior majority investments from private equity funds managed by Blackstone (“Blackstone”) in both Liftoff and Vungle.

Liftoff and Vungle currently operate as strong, complementary partners within the marketing ecosystem, each with proven track records of delivering innovative industry solutions. Liftoff’s best-in-class technology enables mobile app marketers to acquire and retain high value users at scale, by delivering more than two billion engaging ads each day across more than 550,000 mobile apps in over 140 countries through advanced machine learning, prediction intelligence and creative optimisation capabilities. Vungle operates one of the largest and most diverse mobile monetisation platforms, with over 100,000 direct SDK integrations across leading mobile app publishers and 15,000 individual content creators across its influencer marketing platform, in addition to a broad suite of capabilities across user acquisition, creative technologies, and content analytics that it leverages to deliver high performance for mobile developers.

Combining two scaled and highly compatible market leaders will create an end-to-end platform that improves the effectiveness of mobile advertising and provides greater scale and enhanced capabilities for mobile developers to build, advertise and monetise their apps. The merger will accelerate key growth initiatives for both companies and enable the combined company to continue to serve the industry with world-class solutions, fuelled by market-leading product and technical innovation.

“When we launched Liftoff nine years ago, it was our vision to offer leading solutions for mobile marketers, in a world where few independent and unbiased alternatives existed,” explained Mark Ellis. “In joining forces with Vungle, we offer not only the industry’s most complete and scaled platform, but also maintain our focus on serving our mobile customers without any conflicts or competing offerings. I look forward to this next phase of growth and innovation, together, as we create the mobile growth platform of the future.”

“When I think about delivering our mission and purpose, there is no better opportunity for Vungle than combining with Liftoff. This merger accelerates our vision to become the essential destination for all mobile developers, and the joining of two leaders as part of this industry-defining transaction will drive huge value for our partners,” said Jeremy Bondy. “Together, we can address the complete mobile app growth cycle – from app design and development to marketing, measurement, and monetisation.”

The transaction underscores Blackstone’s thematic focus on digital advertising technology and content, and follows other investments led by its flagship private equity funds in leading businesses including Simpli.fi, Ancestry, Bumble, and Hello Sunshine. Blackstone will continue to actively support the combined company as the majority shareholder through this next phase of growth and innovation.

“The merger of Liftoff and Vungle brings together two extraordinary companies and paves the way to create the next generation of industry-leading solutions that will set the standard for mobile content growth,” said Sachin Bavishi, a Managing Director at Blackstone. “We have high conviction in the growth potential of the mobile app economy and are excited to partner with Mark, Jeremy, and the rest of the team to expand upon the combined company’s leadership position and further accelerate growth.”

Martin Brand, Head of North American Private Equity at Blackstone and Global Co-Head of Technology Investing, added, “This transaction highlights Blackstone’s focus on partnering with great management teams to accelerate the growth and scale of their companies. The combination will create a market leader that we believe will be one of the most valuable independent assets in the mobile marketing ecosystem.”

The transaction is expected to close at the end of September. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP served as legal counsels on the transaction.

News, Tech

Vungle acquires GameRefinery, a leading SaaS mobile gaming analytics company

Acquisition brings further innovation to Vungle’s mobile performance advertising platform by offering contextual targeting and creative intelligence features

Vungle, a leading mobile performance advertising platform, announced today the acquisition of GameRefinery, an industry-leading SaaS mobile gaming analytics company headquartered in Finland. GameRefinery’s Game Intelligence platform provides developers with retention and monetisation insights through its cloud-based developer tools for world-class studios such as Zynga, King, Rovio, Ubisoft, and more. The company’s deep contextual data sets across 160,000+ gaming apps bring unique and innovative targeting capabilities to Vungle’s platform, helping advertisers deliver contextually relevant campaigns and increase user acquisition performance in today’s privacy-focused, post-IDFA landscape.

GameRefinery also brings image recognition and creative tagging capabilities that will be leveraged by Vungle Creative Labs (VCL). Combining VCL’s extensive experience in cutting-edge creative and UA, with granular reporting on visual elements including styles and genre fit, provide industry-leading performance recommendations for its biggest customers.

“Together, Vungle, GameRefinery, and Algolift offer the only platform that speaks to game and product teams in the development process, marketing, UA, and growth teams in the scaling stage, and data teams when measuring and refining outcomes,” said Jeremy Bondy, CEO of Vungle. “We are excited to welcome a remarkable GameRefinery team to the Vungle family and have never been stronger in our position as the trusted guide for developers.”

“At GameRefinery, we are very proud to have built a differentiated mobile game analytics platform to help our clients excel at game development, creative performance, and targeting,” said Markus Råmark, Co-founder and CEO of GameRefinery. “We couldn’t be more excited to join Vungle’s team with our shared vision of building leading-edge game analytics and proprietary creative intelligence to help game developers design, advertise, and monetise their mobile games.”

“The combined offering will enable Vungle to touch our advertisers across multiple areas of our platform with deeper creative analysis and insights, contextual targeting recommendations, and reporting,” said Martin Price, Vice President of Product at Vungle.

“Given the privacy-related changes to iOS 14 and the industry at large, it is more important now than ever to find inventive ways of understanding the context of an ad placement and driving better creative targeting. The GameRefinery acquisition gives us a richer suite of data to let us do exactly that.”

“GameRefinery and Vungle are both integral partners for Huuuge Games and have also helped grow our loyal user base over the past few years,” said Anton Gauffin, CEO of Huuuge Games. “Both companies are very aligned with what mobile game developers are looking for; the fact that they have now joined forces now means that we will have access to a fantastic arsenal of tools that will help us grow even further in a post-IDFA, contextual world.”

GameRefinery’s co-founders Markus Råmark, Veli-Pekka Julkunen, and Joel Julkunen, as well as the entire GameRefinery team, will join the Vungle organisation. The team will continue to operate out of the company’s offices in Helsinki.