AT&T planning security service for mobile phones

AT&T plans to launch a wireless security service next year designed to protect mobile phones from cyberattacks, according to a key company executive quoted in a Reuters article.

The head of AT&T's enterprise business, John Stankey, said the company already sells security products to the business sector but hasn't yet tapped into the more difficult consumer market, where users are sometimes less willing to spend money on such protection.

Interviewed ahead of the Reuters Technology Media and Telecommunications Summit, Stankey told Reuters that subscription-based antivirus services will become as relevant in the wireless world as they are now on the desktop.

Pointing to an increase in the number of security attacks against mobile devices, Stankey said AT&T is looking to gear up some type of security service that consumers might be inclined to pay for as the threat to their mobile devices increases. He provided virtually no details on such a service, and an AT&T spokesman couldn't add anything further, but the goal is reportedly to ramp up the new security service sometime in 2012.