Verizon Mobile Threat Defense

Verizon Mobile Threat Defense is a managed mobile security service for business customers, protecting smartphones and tablets against device, network, application and phishing threats, sold alongside Verizon's business mobility plans, device management and wider security portfolio.

Buying mobile security from the carrier is a genuinely different proposition and the advantage is procurement rather than technology. An organisation already buying lines, devices and data from Verizon adds protection to an existing contract with an existing account team, which for a mid-sized company without a security function is a considerably shorter path than evaluating specialist vendors.

The carrier position also brings network-level visibility that a software-only vendor does not have, since traffic crossing the mobile network can be inspected for malicious destinations before it reaches the device, though how much of that is used varies by service.

The trade to weigh is independence. A specialist mobile threat defence vendor competes on detection quality alone and works across carriers, while a carrier service is convenient and ties another part of the estate to one supplier. Verizon publishes its business mobility plan rates separately from the security add-ons.