Layers // October 2023

??? Droidcon London 2023

In this October 2023 edition of Layers, you find us basking in the warm afterglow of the Droidcon London conference which took place last week.

As a developer-led company, we love being a part of events focused on engineers of mobile apps. And Droidcon London is certainly that. It was fantastic to meet with developers, chat through their challenges, and get a sense of what mobile app security means to them.

As gold sponsors, we had a nice big space in which to have these conversations. ??

We shared some live Alice Threat Intelligence data (more on this later in this newsletter) on the big screen at our booth. And we invited attendees to enter a prize draw to win some fantastic Google Pixel prizes (congrats again to the winners!??) by answering a few questions about app security.

Stay tuned for some interesting insights from this survey.

Licel CEO Ivan Kinash and Developer Relations Lead Ben Thompson also gave a talk about the Android threat landscape. They shared some tips for how to create a threat model, and they explained the defensive mechanisms Android apps need to protect themselves from sophisticated attacks.

All in all it was a special couple of days. We really enjoyed meeting everybody and feel genuinely invigorated about the future of Android development and the role all of us have to play in keeping the platform safe.

?? Licel shortlisted as one of techUK's top ten innovators in cybersecurity

Earlier this month, we were shortlisted by techUK as one of their top 10 innovators in the cybersecurity sector.

We were invited to pitch to a group of industry experts at the Cyber Innovation Den. And that evening we attended the annual techUK cybersecurity dinner in Westminster, London.

These activities were all part of techUK's Cyber Security Week. Licel CEO Ivan Kinash also marked it by penning an article about the need to understand the psychology behind cyber attacks.

? Introducing a new look for Licel

We've made a few changes to the written and visual branding of the Licel website.

For a while now we've been keen for the website to truly reflect the way that we understand the world of app security in a more visual way - the way we explain it to clients and prospects.

In other words, shining a light on an ever-changing digital ecosystem, having empathy for end users who navigate this world every day, and uncovering the layers of protection mobile apps require in the modern world.

Hopefully these themes will be clear to you as you scroll and swipe through the site.

If you'd like to learn more about our new look, our Head of Content and Communications, Tom Cross , has written an article here on LinkedIn all about it.

Please do get in touch with us or comment below if anything in particular resonates with you.

?? 302,004 malware attacks: diving into Alice's attack data

As we mentioned earlier, we had Alice's live attack data (the attacks being stopped by DexProtector) up on the big screen at our booth at Droidcon London.

People's reactions to this in-the-moment feed are always interesting:

"Wait..how many attacks?!" is a pretty common one.

But what are the insights behind these numbers? What is the data actually telling us?

We've written an article based on some top level data from September 2023 to give you an idea of what Alice's attack data can teach us about the threat landscape and how it's evolving over time.

???? Creating a company culture for security

Did you know that some common cultural customs in the workplace can have a negative impact on your company's resilience against attacks?

As we've explored in previous articles, bad actors target emotions. And there are some common practices in business that can make these emotions easier to target.

Take silos, for example. They make teams less likely to trust (or communicate with) other teams.

Another example is blame culture. If there's a tendency within your organization to find somebody responsible for mistakes, an employee might withhold important information about an attack that could exacerbate it.

Read the full article about creating a company culture for security.

??? On our reading list

Here are a few stories that grabbed our attention recently:

Amnesty International calls for investigation into spyware firm's Dublin office

Android devices with backdoored firmware found in US schools

How to catch a wild triangle

What will replace smartphones?

How scammers use psychology to create convincing internet cons

If anything has resonated with you in this edition of Layers and you'd like to get in touch, please comment below or contact us at [email protected].

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