Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cell Phone Virus Threat Overblown

Posted by timothy on from the cell-phone-drivers-are-scarier dept.

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."

8 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. too many phones to write portable viruses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So many different phones. It's too hard to write anything that will run on them all. Even with write once run everywhere technology ;)

    http://www.madecollective.com/

    1. Re:too many phones to write portable viruses? by 3vi1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't worry, after Microsoft uses it's marketing muscle to position itself as the premier OS provider for mobile phones, there will be a base set of API's hackers can write for / exploit.

  2. No, the threat is not overblown. by Sheetrock · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Unlike with most computer virii, there is an incentive to profit with cell virii.

    I'm sure there are people already working out how to get these programmable phones to call those phone numbers in certain countries that charge you an outrageous amount per minute. The wireless companies need to take this seriously.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    1. Re:No, the threat is not overblown. by Uruk · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Shouldn't it be obvious that these types of things are eventually going to be a problem on mobile platforms?

      People have been talking about digital convergence, and the idea that many devices are becoming one. Already, these mobile phones are just PCs who happen to have one primary specialized purpose (voice communications). Since they are basically PCs, unless there's something fundamentally different about the way the software is architected or the way the systems are designed from the start, there's no reason to believe that they would be any less vulnerable to viruses, or that they would be any less attractive as a target for virus writers.

      Unlike with most computer virii, there is an incentive to profit with cell virii.


      There may be different ways of profiting with cell virii, but there are plenty of ways of profiting with computer virii, from bogus click-nets, to identity theft, to pilfering personal financial information (.doc and .xls files on disk) to all sorts of other methods.

      The profit motive comes later though - the first wave of virii seems to always just be by geeks who did it to see if they could. (They can)

      --
      -- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
  3. Re:SMS Spam is worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    it's worse than that, of course. "virii" is nothing more than a possible plural for the nonexistent word "virius"

  4. Re:perhaps this is a concern. by almostmanda · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Damn Microsoft for introducing people to the concept of viruses. It's just in everyone's head now that viruses are a fact of life and there's nothing we can do about it except slap more software on our machines, and it won't be long before every smart-gadget in our homes has "anti virus" software available to it. I can see it now: Symantec AV Toaster Edition. 73% of toaster users are aware of viruses targetting their bread!" The cost to the consumer isn't even an issue compared to the computing resources wasted on virus monitoring, spyware monitoring, software firewalls, etc. Will my toaster toast at half speed when running Symantec AV Toaster Edition? Is it really ethical for a company to charge you for a nonexistant "threat" and then make your computing experience worse than before, making you think you have even MORE problems? The thing that sucks is, even if Microsoft did fix everything in Longhorn and make viruses a much less serious issue, there's still an industry out there that will continue to find a reason to exist. I think we're gonna see a lot more of this type of scaremongering in the future.

  5. Huh?? by NitsujTPU · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ok guys, we need to be consistent...

    If Microsoft said that the threat of viruses against its OS was overblown, in the face of Symantec, we'd be up in arms vs MS.

    Are we really supposed to be up in arms against Symantec for saying that cell phones are vulnerable?

    Since when is it not a problem just because none of the viruses do anything malevolent yet? What is this, security through hoping the problem goes away?

    Also, we're suppose to beleive a telecom over Symantec? I'm not saying that Symantec has nothing at stake, but sheesh, since when do we believe everything that the telecoms tell us?

  6. Dude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You have no idea what's going on in Africa? Dozens of millions of straight people have AIDS. It's a big deal.

    Just because we don't usually have open sores here to speed transmission, we wash more often, and we use condoms to avoid babies does NOT mean you can scooff at the idea of a straight AIDS epidemic without looking like a fool.