The number of corporate mobile devices using third-party security applications will rise significantly over the next four years, a study by Juniper Research has predicted.

According to its statistics, 18.6% of all mobile handsets used in business will be protected by vendor-developed applications by 2014, compared with 5.6% of all devices at the end of 2008.

The research suggests that viruses and malware will become a threat to handhelds during the next few years, despite this problem so far having failed to materialise on any grand scale.

“Improvements to the underlying security of the mobile operating system, shorter replacement cycles and concerted efforts by the mobile industry to avoid the problems seen in the PC world have so far kept the malware threat to the mobile device at bay,” said Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper.