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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."
What I have gotten regularly though is spam text messages. On a HTML enabled phone (Treo), the messages are sophisticated enough so that you can click through on a URL to bring up your tiny browser.
Newsfollow.com
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/
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.
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...
There's a large virus risk! Especially when you've got anti-virus software to sell.....
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
This is bull. If you stoped 1,000 people on the streat and asked them if cell phone viruses exist, 998 will laugh at you, 1 will say yes, and 1 will bable off in 1337 speak. While people has been able to make cell viruses, they aren't out there yet. Atleast not to my knowlage...
~ Mooga
It makes sense. It's the same reason that there aren't many Linux and Mac viruses, there isn't enough people to affect. When there is one uniform OS Smartphone and the people using them aren't limited to savvy business men.
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?
Get one of those cinder block cell phones from the 70s. You'll never have to worry about viruses again.
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.
The reason why my cell phone drops calls is not because of rampant viruses created by 30-year-old script kiddies living in their parents' basement? My cell phone provider lied to me!
Symantec is already under pressure from it's stock holders to diversify itself and expand upon the security market. They've taken in anti-spam and anti-spyware companies to beef up the privacy/security buisness, but with good, free competition thier unlikely to get where they would like to be. Buisness is good now, but no doubt the company is concerned about the future, with greater awarness of security from all ends.
I wonder if Symantec's recent statements are an act of true concern, or just an attempt to bolster sales in the exploding hand-held & mobile market?
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?
The solution to this problem is easy. Turn off your damn bluetooth. Some dumbasses (read: Paris Hilton) leave it on all the time, which means any idiot can come along and hack/infect your phone/PDA. If you just leave bluetooth off, except for when you need it, you will significantly decrease (if not illiminate alltogether) the threat, as well as increase your battery life.
To those who will no doubt argue that they need their bluetooth headset:
Headsets/handsfree is meant to be used in situations where you need your hands. (driving, working...) Generally, you don't need your hands while in public places, so when in public places make sure you have bluetooth off and don't use your headset. Since public places are where you will most likely get infected, this is the best bet of safety.
Just because it's a feature, doesn't mean you have to use it!
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
This is a big red warning flag if anything. Overblow it if only to vastly improve mobile device wireless security, which at the moment is somewhere between not present and just asking for it.
And luckily, my phone is too crap to be compramised, woohoo!
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
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...
"Cell Phone Virus Threat Overblown"
It's too bad this isn't fark.com so someone could have stuck an [obvious] tag in front of that headline...
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Ten years ago, viruses on PCs were uncommon. Now it's all we can do to keep a machine from being rooted in minutes. While the infrastructure of mobile companies is well NAT'd, the possibilities of people inadvertently getting snarfed is really high. There are five OS makers out there for mobiles, none of which do anything at all to warn users about possible hijacks, phishing schemes (how about emulating that Coke machine that someone wants to buy from?), viruses, and/or data theft (Hi Paris!) and other threats.
Where Symantec is invested in making us paranoid, why not act now, rather than patch phones until we're blue in the face, like we do with PCs? I really disliked Symantec's other seemingly bogus announcements about threats where they don't exist, but with mobile use approaching a billion users, it's just bound to happen and with widespread panic.
Imagine not wanting to use your mobile because you're worried about what might happen. Imagine getting popups, or very unexpected use from a hijack. Or having your authentication swiped then charged up the yang in the next few minutes. Sound like fun? It will happen. Or: just ignore it. It'll go away. Those bad people won't hurt you on your mobile.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
F-Secure tells, that you need to answer YES four time before you get infected. From F-secure's page: "So how come anybody ever gets infected by it if you have to click "Yes" so many times? Well, we've spoken to many people who've actually been infected, and they typically explain it like this: They got this weird message on the phone, requesting a "Yes" or "No" answer. So they clicked "No". But the message popped up immediatly again. And they clicked "No" - only to see the message pop up again. And since "No" didn't seem to be working, they clicked "Yes"... The message would have disappeared if they would have walked away from the area where they were (to get out of the range of the infected phone), but there's no way for an end user to know that." http://www.f-secure.fi/weblog/
The truth or interpretation..