The Government Accountability Office is recommending in a new report issued Sept. 18 that the FCC encourage the private sector to implement a broad, industry-defined baseline of mobile security safeguards.

GAO also recommends that DHS and NIST take steps to better measure progress in raising national cybersecurity awareness.

Threats to the security of mobile devices and the information they store and process have been increasing significantly, GAO said. For example, the number of variants of malicious software, known as “malware,” aimed at mobile devices has reportedly risen from about 14,000 to 40,000 or about 185% in less than a year.