Walking around this year's Smartphone Show in London, one thought suddenly struck Steve - where were the 'anti-virus' vendors? Is it possible, Steve dares to hope, that the virus hype from developers has finally, finally gone away? Has this part of the Symbian OS world finally grown up?
Read on in the full article.
And another famous Steve (pretty much the same day 😉 is saying:
Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones�this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than �totally open,� we believe it is a step in the right direction.
Personally I still think there's room for them (doesn't mean they are strictly necessary though).
Enterprise IT people want to to be able to install something so that if something does happen they can point to what they tried to do. To bear fair the F-Secure solution does allow for update to go out quite rapidly. The fact it is highly unlikely to happens does not mean it is impossible. However its unlikely the security applications could catch whatever the breach was... Enterprise thinking seems to define rational explanation at times.
Ok what about "something" that looks like a cracked game, it doesn't try to break out but does some nasty things on the phone, like deleting user data. It's not a virus literally (although some can say that it's spreading by social engineering) but still can do some damage or not?
Yes, exactly. But if it couldn't spread, how would anyone catch it? Only by deliberately downloading known cracked software and ignoring all warnings. In which case they're probably well aware od the risk of so-called 'trojans'. And even if someone was this stupid, a working device is only a hard reset or card format away etc.
Steve
I basically agree that Symbian 9.x is extremely secure. However I think it is dangerous to make statements like "... And there's not a single instance of a virus. Not one. because the OS makes such existence impossible." There is no such thing as impossible and you should never say never.
I can think of several methods malware could be introduced on OS 9.x based platform. Although all of them are quite unlikely, but if there was an actual virus outbreak I think the threat might be a bit more serious than outlined in this article. Here's why:
1) Your average user does not pay attention to various warnings shown by the operating system. What is worse, all the numerous warning and information dialogs Symbian requires even legitimate applications show, have got people used to pressing "yes". (Windows Vista is nearly as bad in this extent.)
2) Sure, even if the device is infected, "a working device is only a hard reset or card format away". Only?!? For many of us, having your device hard reset is not simply a minor inconvenience. Of course you can disinfect a compromised PC too by format and reinstall, but what about all the data that gets lost in the process?
3) If the malware takes advantage of a vulnerability in the OS, the only way to solve the problem for real is to do a firmware upgrade. Even though the vendors have set up sites where end users may update the firmware by themselves, how many of them actually does that? There are a LOT of people out there who don't even know they are using a Symbian based mobile phone, let alone that there would be a site to do firmware upgrades.
Sadly, some sellers seem to be unaware of the facts regarding S60 v3, or perhaps they have other reasons for misleading their customers. Either way, they are perpetuating the idea that viruses are still a problem on s60 v3.
On this page about the E51, it says:
Concerned you might attract a virus in your handset? Well, there�s good news. Nokia E51 has support for Symantec, F-Secure, McAfee, and Trend Micro antivirus software that keep your handset free from virus attack. These applications are accessible through download tool provided in the handset. Nokia E51 also supports Windows Live and Yahoo! that can be downloaded.
Is there anyone who has suffered from malware on OS 9.x?
There are a few pages in the net that makes my phone reboot or just turn off and in one case with Jiangmin antivirus it make my phone start from a new date 2008 and it was 2009!
The thing is that no data was lost but some app didn�t work proply so I installed them again.
With other antivirus it just reboot the phone but even that antivirus with firewall at medium level wasn�t enough to prevent the reboot but the problem is with firewall at a medium level I can�t receive mails.
But what I would like to know is if this problem caused by some webpages are deliberated using some failure of the Noia E51 and if so how long we expect to some of this people make some bad virus for the people like me that install everything because the phone is all the times saying that nothing is secure, what make people ignore these warnings.
But one thing is true, if you keep saying that antivirus want to sell protection that are useless may be new virus would come fast than we think... may be to prove the contrary.