Lookout keeps an eye on mobile-device security (photos)

San Francisco start-up Lookout is launching this week. Shown here is co-founder and CEO John Hering at the company's offices in downtown San Francisco.

The Lookout software runs on mobile phones, offering antivirus and firewall protection, as well real-time cloud-based backup, the ability to locate missing devices, and manage many devices. The service is currently in private beta in more than 170 countries across 400 mobile networks, says Hering.

The service will be offered publicly on a subscription basis in early 2010 and an enterprise version will come later in 2010 or early 2011. Pricing will be announced later.

The data that Lookout manages is backed up in real time, and the user can go back in time to restore a device to its configuration from any date in the past. In the event of a lost device, users have the option of locking the phone or nuking the data from the phone, preventing it from being accessed by anyone else.

Hering stands at the fuzzing cluster, a machine the company designed to test vulnerabilities and record diagnostics on multiple mobile phones simultaneously.

Lookout's software runs on many devices. The fuzzing cluster connects phones from different manufacturers and that run different operating systems.

Kevin Mahaffey (left), co-founder and CTO, and John Hering, co-founder and CEO, at their recently opened offices in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. They are hoping the luck of the previous occupant--Twitter--rubs off on them.