Future Qualcomm Snapdragon chips will protect against malware and viruses from the inside

With threats like Stagefright making headlines in recent weeks, companies across the breadth of the smartphone industry are taking measures to prevent another large scale security issue from affecting the world’s smartphone users.

We saw the likes of Google and Samsung announce more regular security updates for their devices. For Qualcomm, this means announcing a new initiative involving its ubiquitous mobile processors.

Starting with the Snapdragon 820, future Qualcomm SoCs will include a technology called Snapdragon Smart Project. Using on-device machine learning, Snapdragon chips will attempt to detect zero-day malware threats. That is, Qualcomm is planning to add a component to its chips that will scan any apps you download and install on your smartphone to see if they’re running any suspicious software.

In addition, Qualcomm will be providing APIs for other companies to use to augment their own software-based malware and virus scanning solutions. The hope is that, working together, the majority of critical security issues will be prevented by these systems.

As mentioned before, the tech is set to launch with the Snapdragon 820, which is set to be released next year.

[source]Qualcomm[/source]