The Silent Killers: 7 Examples of Mobile Device Security Risks

It’s easy to think about securing an organization’s data like building a bank vault. You focus on defenses that are impermeable to unauthorized parties: doors hardened against drills, walls resistant to impacts, and countermeasures for any number of other illicit access methods. Ultimately, you feel confident that only people with the right clearance will get in.

But what if robbers didn’t need to open your vault door themselves — they just needed to hide in your employee’s pocket as that employee stepped across the threshold? That’s what mobile device security risks do to the best-laid enterprise defenses, and that’s why it’s essential to understand common mobile device security risk examples, how they escalate your exposure to cyber risk, and how to combat them.

7 common mobile device security risks examples

Mobile device security risks broadly refer to any risk factor that a) stems from a phone or tablet and b) puts your organization’s digital assets at risk.

Since mobile devices are such a common part of work today, modern organizations may face as many mobile device security risks as they have workers — or more. Here are some of the most common forms these vulnerabilities take:

Phishing

As long as a device can receive texts or emails, it will be an avenue for one of the biggest mobile device security risk out there: phishing. While our research indicates that 96% of security leaders are confident their employees can spot a phishing attempt, more than half of those leaders reported incidents where employees fell victim to executive impersonation scams via text message. The problem is only set to worsen now that AI-empowered threat actors are using jailbroken LLMs to draft even more convincing fakes.

Simple gift card scams may lead to stolen money, but requests for login information or 2FA codes, including links to intricately spoofed login pages, put attackers on the fast track to organizational access.

Mobile OS vulnerabilities

Perhaps the most fundamental mobile device security risk example is a security flaw in the mobile operating system itself. These are becoming increasingly common as zero-day mobile vulnerabilities, which are security holes that go undetected through pre-release and make it into live distribution.

As the name suggests, there’s no way to catch zero-day vulnerabilities ahead of time. Once they’ve been identified, attackers may have already exploited them to gain escalated access to employees’ mobile devices and, through them, your systems.

App vulnerabilities

The apps that run on mobile devices can also present vulnerabilities. Improperly secured apps present attackers with inroads to the data they contain, and potentially even deeper control over the device itself, depending on the severity of the vulnerability.

Given the built-in limitations and guardrails of most mainstream mobile apps, these vulnerabilities tend to be more situationally useful to potential attackers than mobile OS vulnerabilities — but they can also take longer to discover and remediate.

Overprivileged apps

If you’ve ever gotten a pop-up notification to give an app access to your mobile device’s location, photos, or files and thought twice before you tapped “Yes,” you’ve considered the ramifications of this mobile device security risk.

Even if an app is not gathering data for malicious purposes, any unnecessary access and improperly secured data they collect present a potential treasure trove for attackers. Threat actors may be able to use the access granted by one overprivileged app to overcome security elsewhere, escalating their presence first across the device and then across your network.

Malware

Security oversights make mobile OSes or apps into liabilities, but deliberately constructed malware turns them into active threats. One recent example is KoSpy, a piece of spyware that masquerades as utility apps to collect extensive data, such as texts, call logs, files, and even device screenshots, seemingly on behalf of an APT group sponsored by North Korea.

If an employee with this kind of malware installed on their personal device accesses your organizational network, attackers could gain the information they need to mount sophisticated attacks that are difficult to detect.

Risky connections

A business desktop in a physical office will only ever log in through an organization’s secure connection. The same cannot be said for mobile devices. Employees may use public Wi-Fi hotspots at the airport or a cafe — or networks impersonating them — to get their work done wherever they are. They may see a long list of Bluetooth devices when they’re trying to connect their earbuds and connect to the wrong one, then give it too much access without thinking.

If the connection point is hosted by a threat actor, or exposes the data that it handles to them, all the unencrypted information an employee sends or receives via that connection may be compromised. That means a high risk of stolen data and compromised credentials, which may lead to further attacks.

Stolen devices

Even the most locked-down, up-to-date phone in the world is still at risk of being snatched from its user’s hand. The GSM Association pronounced mobile device theft a “global safety crisis” in 2024, and while device manufacturers are responding with anti-theft features, none are foolproof.

If a device is unlocked, thieves get unrestricted access to anything that doesn’t require additional logins: that could include sensitive emails, 2FA codes delivered via app or SMS, and beyond. Even if the device is locked, attackers could have more time to work on it than you’d expect — a remote command to lock-and-wipe will only work if the device can get a signal.

How to protect your organization

These are just a few common examples of mobile device security risks that organizations face every day. Many more present just as pressing a risk and tempting a target for threat actors. There’s no sign that the number of mobile vulnerabilities will lessen any time soon.

And yet, despite the potential consequences of a data breach, responding to and remediating each mobile device vulnerability manually isn’t feasible for most organizations. Neither is limiting the key role these devices play in efficient, flexible workflows.

The solution is mobile endpoint defense that is just as capable of spotting risk factors in the person on the other side of the screen as it is of flagging vulnerable apps and risky connections. Until recently, that kind of cohesive coverage from a single system wasn’t feasible — but AI-powered human risk detection means it’s not just possible, it’s protecting users and organizations right now.

Want to learn more about how AI-powered tech detects, evaluates, and responds to threats to your organization’s data — and keeps those metaphorical bank robbers out of your employees’ pockets? Read the Lookout Mobile EDR Playbook to see how we make it happen.