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Security Firms Bicker Over Mobile Viruses
Fijer Nrosikjen writes to mention a ZDNet article about a claim by CA that F-Secure is just spreading FUD over mobile virus code, in order to promote its product. From the article: "CA said criminals do not have an economic incentive to develop malicious code and that the risk of such attacks spreading around smart phones is minimal because of a lack of interoperability between platforms and phone models. Network services don't allow for the fast spreading of code from phone to phone, and user interaction is required for any viruses to spread, the company added. It said F-Secure has created an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt to sell its product, undermining the relationship of trust that has been established between the industry and vendors. "
These people have never heard of viruses that can look like something else, seem useful, et cetera. And it's not that hard to make a virus that says "You're a windows mobile device, i'll download THAT code"
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
If anything, F-Secure is sounding a warning. Mobile viruses may not be the primary attack vector now, but with smart devices ever increasing (and a propensity of some executives to store everything on them, including passwords), it makes sense to stir up a little fear in the hope of preventing future harm.
Fear is not bad if it is founded in reality. I've seen enough reality to know that this fear is warranted.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Most people don't need AV software
WTF? Most nerds may not need AV software on their PCs. Most other people do. They do not know how to recognize and avoid malware, manually remove it and repair damage done by it, or follow good practice to avoid it in the first place. If you're arguing that they should learn, that's pie in the sky. Believe me, they need AV software.
Oh no... it's the future.
Don't confuse "economic gain" with "monetary gain". The two are often mistakenly used interchangeably. See this discussion for more information, but the basic assumption is that the perceived utility, or gain (which does not have to be monetary - it could be something as simple as public recognition, personal satisfaction, etc outweighs the cost - again, cost is not necessarily monetary, but could include effort required to write something, or learn the right language, whatever. Finally, there is utility cost involved too: what is the next best thing the person could have been doing instead of writing the code. If the other option was, say, sitting at a bar with friends, the loss of that utility is factored into the discussion about whether writing the mobile virus (or whatever) makes sense from an economics standpoint.
You probably already knew this and were just making a joke, but I see this "economic gain is equivalent to monetary gain" so many times that I finally got motivated enough to write this response...
For the average user it sure seems easier to pay the AV guys than to pay the reinstall guys - cheaper too.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Think you're smart, eh? The plural of Virus is NOT Virii. Dumb-ass.
If anyone knows about criminal activities for fun and profit it'd have to be CA.
Too lazy to create a sig...
"user interaction is required for any viruses to spread" So? We recently had a virus at my work (a large fortune 500 company) that required you to open up a zip file, put in a supplied 6-digit password from the email into the application the zipfile opened, and run the executible application. We still had people do this, because they thought it was "secret pictures" or something from their co-workers.
A virus could require you to bleed onto the keyboard by stabbing yourself in the hand. If it promised nude pics and said it was from someone you know, there are enough people out there that will run it to give me a headache.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
It's been said that people use OSS because it's free, more secure, performs better, architected better
However I think I like OSS most because there's no marketing department intruding into my life and in many cases lying to me.
Let's all raise our glasses to this wonderful phenomenon.