FireEye Inc (FEYE) CTO Greg Day Says Smartphones Are Hackers’ Next Target

FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) Chief Technology Officer, Greg Day, says that smartphones are the next targets of hackers. The comment comes from the executive in a discussion on CNBC’s NexTech.

The FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) CTO first discussed whether companies have the responsibility to always stay one step ahead in cyber security or there is also a responsibility for other organizations to keep leaked information from being published. This was in the wake of the Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) hacking and its warning to news organizations reporting what it calls stolen information.

According to Day, there has been a shift in recent years from being able to just stop bad guys from taking over computer networks and systems to being able to effectively respond and marginalize the impact when attacks happen.

He then said that he and FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) expect the mobile space to be the next rife battleground against hackers.

“Technology continues to evolve at such pace. In many ways, what it does is to create a new playground for cybercriminals to work in and we’ve certainly seen in the last few years cybercrime, what we suffer as consumers, has been focused on our online shopping habits. As that now moves on to our smartphones […] I think we are going to see a real growth [of cybercrimes] into that space in 2015,” he said.

The FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) executive noted that this prediction is supported by the fact that companies like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) are offering their payment solutions more and more for their mobile platforms.

Day also said that the challenge the Internet poses is that it’s an international presence whereas law enforcement typically is contained within borders of countries.

Glen Kacher’s Light Street Capital reported owning 1 million FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) shares by the end of the third quarter. This stake was valued at the time the institutional investor reported it at about $30.56 million. This holding which makes up 4.32% of the firm’s whole portfolio represents a 567% increase quarter-over-quarter in the firm’s stake in FireEye.