NYC Unveils App To Help Protect Cellphones From Hackers

NEW YORK, NY — New Yorkers will soon have a tool to help protect their cellphones from hackers as part of a citywide effort to improve public cybersecurity. City officials plan to launch a free smartphone app this summer that will alert users to "suspicious activity" on their phones, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.

The app will send a notification whenever it senses something fishy and tell users how to combat it by uninstalling a dangerous app, navigating away from a webpage or taking other steps, said Geoff Brown, the city's chief information security officer.

The app aims to protect everyday New Yorkers from online threats as the average American spends five hours a day on a smartphone, city officials said. Mobile devices now account for half of all web traffic, and 30 percent of all cyberattacks are estimated to be mobile-based by 2020, officials said.

"I don’t think it really matters if you do a lot online or a little online — everyone should be worried at this point," de Blasio, a Democrat, said at a news conference Thursday. "And if we can do something that will help everyday people protect themselves, I think that’s all to the good."

The app is part of the city's new "NYC Secure" initiative to bolster digital security amid a growing specter of online threats.

As another piece of the initiative, the New York City Cyber Command, which oversees the city's digital defenses, will require all city agencies and other entities to install additional security on their public and "guest" WiFi networks by the end of the year. The city is rolling out a system called Quad9 that bars users from accessing malicious websites or software on those networks, Brown said

Eighteen agencies and offices have already safeguarded their networks, and the 1,400 LinkNYC kiosks that provide free WiFi around the city will also be protected eventually, officials said.

De Blasio did not detail other pieces of the "NYC Secure" initiative, but said it will "start quickly and it will build out." The entire program will cost about $5 million a year to run, de Blasio said.

The city wants to give New Yorkers added security without compromising their privacy, Brown said. The app, for example, won't require any personal information and won't send data off of users' phones, he said.

The rollout of the city's programs follow the widely reported Russian interference in the 2016 elections using several digital means. It also comes in the wake of revelations about two weeks ago that Cambridge Analytica, a firm tied to President Donald Trump's campaign, mined data from Facebook for over 50 million users, leading to intense criticism of the social media company.

Data breaches that affected billions of accounts have hit other large companies such as Yahoo and Equifax, the credit reporting agency.

The city has taken up several efforts to protect its own digital infrastructure in recent years, the mayor said, but officials want to help protect the public absent significant action from private companies.

"The good news is smartphones put the world at our fingertips, but they also put private info and data at the fingertips of thieves and we need to do something to protect our people," de Blasio said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica mined Facebook data. The revelations came about two weeks ago.

(Lead image: Photo by Africa Studio/Shutterstock)