Qualcomm just announced its new Snapdragon Smart Protect technology set to grace future chips, starting with the upcoming Snapdragon 820.
This Qualcomm Snapdragon Smart Protect will use on-device machine learning to detect and protect against zero-day malware threats. As Qualcomm notes, the technology is also designed with enhanced user privacy and device security in mind.
At the same time, the Snapdragon Smart Protect will come as the first application to leverage Qualcomm Zeroth technology, amplifying existing anti-malware solutions.
The new technology aims to complement current signature-based solutions against malware by assessing and detecting new threats ahead of new signature updates. This way, the updates can cover all threats.
Moreover, the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Smart Protect application programming interface (API) will allow providers of mobile anti-malware apps, as well as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to perform causal analysts. This way, they can offer real-time information on the threats they identify.
In today's mobile-driven world, consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile devices to store various data and perform a slew of tasks including payments and others. The threats are now bigger as well, with leaks related to data leakage and malware increasingly posing complex challenges.
"Qualcomm Technologies is uniquely equipped to address these issues with our ability to access lower layers of the software stack and dedicated security hardware, to create a device-based, behavioral analysis approach for mobile security," said Asaf Ashkenazi, Qualcomm Technologies' Director of Product Management.
With deep on-device monitoring, Snapdragon Smart Protect can provide virtually instantaneous notifications of privacy violations and malware it detects, without negatively affecting system performance and battery life.
Qualcomm Technologies is working closely with OEMs and mobile security providers such as AVG, Avast and Lookout to bundle the new Snapdragon Smart Protect capabilities with the anti-malware apps they commercialize.
As previously mentioned, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chip will be the first one to rock the new Snapdragon Smart Protect technology, hitting consumer devices early next year. In the meantime, check out the video below to get a better idea of Smart Protect.
It's worth pointing out, however, that not all Snapdragon 820-powered smartphones that launch in 2016 will necessarily have Snapdragon Smart Protect active and working. Even though the Snapdragon 820 chip will come with Snapdragon Smart Protect baked in, it's still up to smartphone manufacturers to build the final user interface using a reference UI and the APIs Qualcomm provides. If they choose not to do so, the device will not boast Smart Protect functionality even if it does pack a Snapdragon 820 chip.
