ARM and German-based international technology provider Giesecke & Devrient have joined forces for the development of a security architecture for mobile phones.

According to the agreement, the two companies with combine ARM TrustZone technology, which creates a protected area in advanced systems-on-chip, with Mobicore operating system developed by G&D, in a bid to protect sensitive applications such as electronic payment and online banking via mobile phone from security threats. Such a combination ensures that if online services require security-sensitive functions such as entry of username and password or data output on a display, these functions are transferred to the Mobicore high-security operating system running in the TrustZone protected area of an ARM application processor.

ARM TrustZone technology is part of the ARM Cortex-A series processors which are being deployed in smartphones by handset manufacturers.