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Security Firms Can't Protect iPhone From Threats
nk497 writes "F-Secure researchers are calling attention to the fact that it's impossible to run third-party anti-virus on iPhones, because the SDK doesn't allow for it. It's a problem, as they claim malware will start to target the phone. 'None of the existing anti-virus vendors can make one, without help from Apple,' chief research officer Mikko Hypponen said. 'Apple hasn't been too interested in developing antivirus solutions for the iPhone, because there are no viruses, which of course, isn't exactly true.' At the moment, the only worms faced by the iPhone have targeted unlocked, jailbroken devices — so Apple's not too bothered protecting users of such phones." While Apple claims that the iPhone's closed nature offers protection to its users, and security vendors maneuver for a piece of a market now closed to them, clearly both sides are pushing their own self-interest.
From the summary, F-Secure: "'Apple hasn't been too interested in developing antivirus solutions for the iPhone, because there are no viruses, which of course, isn't exactly true.' .
No, indeed, only jailbroken phones were infected. Thus the obvious solution for F-Secure would be to bring out an app in Cydia or other app stores for jailbroken devices.
Of course, rather than do something, their execs prefer to spend their time whining.
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Anti-virus/anti-malware always seems to be a shitty bandaid to a badly designed system. Even running Windows 7, with UAC on, non-administrative account 99.999% time, always a non-IE browser, and very strict on what I run as .exe and where I download them, ad-aware just found some wind32 trojan.
Also, people forget this is supposed to be a portable device, even a phone sometimes. Remember what most A/V does to your desktop? I don't run A/V on my notebook, and I actually do want a decent battery life on my phone, as hard as that is to believe.
However, I know there will be problems with the iPhone. I do wish its safari had the option of "noscript" and stronger adblock plus than its own system among other things. And that when you do use it for the first time, it would have a video on safe usage. You can't upgrade or improve the user, the weakest link, but at least you can try to lead that horse to water that is education.
This is even more stupid than their attempt to sell antivirus for Palm OS.
There is no mechanism for transmission between one iPhone and another UNLESS the iPhone is jailbroken.
So Symantec only needs to write antivirus for jailbroken iPhones. And Apple would have no way to prevent them. So what's their problem?