| Mobile Malware Is it FUD or Fact |
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| Written by Editor |
| Wednesday, 02 August 2006 16:30 |
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F-Secure defended themselves in their weblog here after this article on ZDNet, it has raised an interesting thought is this really the problem that the Anti-Virus Industry thinks it is. Most of the major players in the Anti-Virus industry have products ready, or have research teams working on products for mobile phone based threats. So why is it that Computer Associates dont think there is a problem? What evidence are they using as a basis for their claims. It really does feel like the early days of PC computer viruses for DOS and then later Windows and the like, when many really did not think it was a problem, until it was too late. Now F-Secures Mikko Hypponen used the some real life experience to back themselves up, citing that Mikko had been the target for Bluetooth enabled Symbian malware four times. Interestingly this spurred the posting on the Spire Security blog here. Spire Security raised the point, that Mikko is the first person they had ever heard of being attacked by a bluetooth virus. They asked had anyone else ever been attacked by one, was this purely a European problem? Now, from our first hand experience here at Virus.Org we have seen mobile phone aware malware in the wild in London (United Kingdom), Rome (Italy) and Stockholm (Sweden). Now weve had some reports from as far as Sydney (Australia). So maybe this is not just a European problem, but maybe it is a technology problem, the bulk of Symbian based phones out there are for GSM/3G networks made by Nokia and Sony Ericsson and some niche vendors. Now in the US the mobile market is very different, GSM/3G networks are not as mainstream as outside the US not as many people have these devices so it stands to reason that malware designed for Symbian platform would not be as common. From our experience the number of people that have an Anti-Virus solution on their phone is small. Those we have seen that had been infected had no idea they had, and the first they knew of the problem is when we approached them to ask. Detection rates are low as few consumers understand that there is a problem, few report a problem as they are probably unaware that they have been infected. We believe that mobile operators and OEMs should look to include solutions within their products to ensure that their customers stay malware free. Existing Anti-Virus vendors should continue to push the issue to their customers, maybe even bundling their mobile anti-virus solutions with their main Windows products to increase customer awareness. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites          |