Encrypted traffic travelling on many mobile networks has risen fivefold in just one year and has now reached 60% of all data, according to Openwave Mobility findings based on trends at a number of mobile operator customers around the globe. The company expects based on current trends, encrypted traffic levels will exceed 80% within 12 months in several regions.
The compnay said that this is now one of the biggest areas of concern for mobile network operators as sites such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia use HTTPS encrypted protocols. As networks go "dark", carriers are unable to gain insight into the encrypted data travelling on their networks. The trend also makes it more difficult for operators to optimize network traffic, including inability to apply filters to block content such as adult material or to identify video streams that could even be used for extreme purposes such as to radicalize vulnerable individuals.
John Giere, CEO, Openwave Mobility
The dangers with encrypted traffic are very real. Only a couple of years ago, it was mainly emails and financial data that were encrypted. Thanks to what some people call the "Edward Snowden effect", content providers are adopting ever-deeper encryption. Even YouTube videos are now delivered over HTTPS protocols. So, the higher the number of videos being consumed by subscribers, the bigger the headache.
