A spokesman at Sophos, the largest anti-virus company in the world, was quoted yesterday: "Some of the anti-virus vendors have been very busy hyping up the Symbian virus threat. The simple fact is that Sophos has never received a single report from any customer hit by one of these things - it seems they're mostly spreading by anti-virus researchers sending them to each other."
Which seems about right from my own analysis. Sophos have also done a little write up on the 'threat', though it's not quite as well informed from a Symbian point of view (i.e. contrary to their advice, you can stay 'discoverable' if you want to without worrying about infection).
So when a news site, or friend, or colleague steps up to warn you about viruses spreading through the mobile world, politely tell them that this info is blatantly misleading. To say the least!
Interesting to see some common sense.
I'm not sure I agree with it not being in the wild. I've been contacted by more than one person about getting / removing it so at least in some places it is around.
Rafe
Rafe wrote:Interesting to see some common sense.I'm not sure I agree with it not being in the wild. I've been contacted by more than one person about getting / removing it so at least in some places it is around.
Rafe
But how would it spread? Do these people *want* to be infected? Or maybe they're just not very bright?
I still think the whole thing is currently a non-issue. 8-/
Steve Litchfield
Never underestimate the stupidity of some people. Could be something simple like a guy get's hold of cabir on his mobile, goes down the pub and sees a handful of mobiles on discoverable and sees who will accept and open the file.
Or 14 year olds who want to install a program makrked "Halo_2_N-Gage" from the warez/irc sites... Never underestimate poor 14 tear olds who feel the world has a right to give them free stuff...
I think its more a case of lack of knowledge. They see something come from a friends phone and think what the heck may as well...
But yeah the whole issue is over exagerated. I mean its no different to installing a program you recieve by e-mail (and I can't think of anyone who would intentially do that!).