Slashdot Mirror
Cell Phone Virus Threat Overblown
An anonymous reader writes "Symantec has come under fire for claiming that 73 percent of smart phone users are aware of viruses and attacks aimed at their handsets. Wireless company WDSGlobal described this as a scaremongering tactic, with its spokesman saying: 'If you look at the viruses out there, currently there are about 14 core viruses, the majority of which are fairly benign. They are mostly developed as "proof of concept" to warn manufacturers of handsets and operating systems or the antivirus industry about potential vulnerabilities.' But Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security, believes mobile viruses and attacks shouldn't be discounted altogether, though he believes they aren't currently registering on any significant scale."
Should we or shouldn't we be afraid of cellphone viruses? This is about the most confusing slashdot story I have seen in the last two hours...
I bought Cellphone AND Mac Anti-virus as a special bundle pack! Well at least I didn't waste my money on the mac protection, I mean Symantec told me I needed it...and they wouldn't lie.....right?
Maybe we can use the "virii" to kill the "boxen" and the literary world will achieve equilibrium.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
That will keep everyone happy and then Symantec can market yet another tool to protect users against the Grammar Police and Miss Grundy...
Oh well, what the hell...
Do they talk about SmartPhone© users (MS) smartphone users (MS, Symbian et al) or smart phone users ie. ones that do remember to shut their phone down when going to theatre, can keep their voice low enough that the whole bus doesn't hear their conversation and do not keep their ringtone at maximum volume so that they can leave the phone at their desk while themselves being at the other end of the building
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!