Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Nokia Phone Gets Virus Protection

Posted by timothy on from the prophylactic dept.

wan-fu writes "After all that talk about bluetooth vulnerabilities and mobile phone virii there will finally be a mobile phone with virus protection. Nokia's 6670 smart phone will be released in October and features software from F-Secure. Perhaps this will raise the eyebrows of some other mobile phone manufacturers to step up and increase their security policies for their phones' operating systems."

6 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by pHatidic · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Am I missing something here?

    Why not just make a phone that is secure in the first place and can't get viruses. This has to be the worst marketing ploy ever.

    1. Re:Hmm by pyrros · · Score: 4, Informative

      >Why not just make a phone that is secure in the first place and
      >can't get viruses. This has to be the worst marketing ploy ever.

      Because people want more and more features. Series 60 phones from nokia can run user-installed programs, and we all know what happens when you mix ease of installation (browse to a WAP/web page) and clueless users.

      Still, the right aproach would be educating users and using some kind of sandbox model:

      "pr0napplet wants to make a phone call"
      [Allow] [Deny] [Always] [Never]

      But I completely agree that bundling snakeoil is NOT the way to go. Moving the antivirus arms race to mobile phones will only hurt the phone market in the long run: when your PC gets 0wned, most of the time you just lose the use of your bandwidth: the spam you send does not immediately hurt you. Should your phone get 0wned, you'll probaly run a service bill in the thousands of dollars (or euros). Once word gets out, some people will be too scared to use a smartphone.

  2. Good! by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Funny

    The first time I get a phone call that says "Hi! How are you? I call you in order to have your advice! See you later! Thanks," I think I will kill someone.

  3. Re:I just want ... by Vicsun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...then buy a telephone which is just a telephone. Those who want more bells&whistles will get a phone with more bells&whistles.
    I never got while people complained about today's phones being too complex; older phones, which are just that - phones, can still be purchased and can be purchased at a price lower than a 'new' phones can.

  4. I'd rather see Nokia patch the OS by tero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article states that there's nothing in the phone that makes it particularly susceptible to viruses and that Nokia knows of no capabilities within any of its devices that a virus might exploit. Fair enough, I suppose, but what happens when one day they release a version which has a bug in it.

    The AV software subscription seems to be an monthly based fee type thingy. (Hats off to F-Secure, looks like they're right there on the bleeding edge of squeezing money out of everything).

    What I'd really like to see is Nokia (and other manufacturers) taking their responsibility and offering online (or SMS based) free updates to their OS.

    I don't want to be forced to subscribing into some monthly fee based bloodsucking anti-virus scheme just to be able to use my phone without having to worry about viruses turning my phone into SMS spamming zombie.

    Even Microsoft releases patches every now and then, why not Nokia (and other cell phone manufacturers)?

  5. Re:I just want ... by EvilNTUser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Goddamnit, stop modding these posts up. They're about as insightful as saying that a computer should just be a calculator.

    --
    My Sig: SEGV