But the more open nature of Android software makes it susceptible to malware that can steal a user's personal information; Lookout, the mobile security firm, estimates that from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2013, 18 million Android users may encounter malware.
Robert Vieteretti, the managing director of Kroll Associates, the New York-based international security firm that provides personal protection, said his company is now much more concerned "with a country's laws, its alliances and anything our clients may have done to anger those nations".
Facebook is a social media company, not a security firm — but, considering the wealth of personal data it holds, security has to be a consideration for everything Facebook does.
"It's personal information that should be stored in a secure way," said Andrew Komarov, chief intelligence officer at data security firm InfoArmor Inc.
US security firm Symantec estimates more than half a billion personal records were lost or stolen last year.
A report released Friday by Trend Micro, a computer security firm, "describes systematic attacks on at least 233 personal computers," Nicole Perlroth writes in The New York Times.
Intriguingly, the address he used is the work address of Heather Millgate, a solicitor specialising in personal injury, and a former director of Global Open, a private security firm.
Many victims appear to have been targeted for their personal activities, rather than where they worked, according to researchers at the security firm Symantec.
Schulman also quotes a lawyer for the plaintiff in a massive fatal personal-injury case, brought against Koch Industries in 1999, as saying that he hired a security firm to sweep his office after suspecting that his phones were bugged.
Exploiting the privileges could let people "steal personal data, track device locations, turn on microphones to record conversations", according to Check Point, the security firm that found the hack and named it "Certifi-Gate".
