There’s an interesting piece on mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk, where the CTO of a company called UMU Mobile makes a statement about people needing to be more vigilant about the security on their Mobile devices.
Peter Harrison says that since the advent of mobile devices are more capable, we are at risk of a virus causing major damage – such as file wipes, hard resets, or unexpected call charges. He says that the advancement in Operating Systems, and also wireless network types, means it’s now easy and lucrative for malware writers to exploit devices. His final thrust, and not unexpected given he works for a Mobile Security company, is that we should consider some sort of firewall and anti-virus equivalent for our smartphones.
Well I’ve got to say I’m really not on board with many of the arguments that are made. Having myself worked for a Mobile company with an AV offering, it became clear to me that much of what is malware is created by hobby-hackers, and even then, it’s not that common.
In addition, the mobile companies are seen as more of a gatekeeper to subscribers than say ISPs are for fixed-line InterWeb users, and so there’s an expectation that my service provider will stop viruses getting in to the mobile network. Given the lack of viruses that have gone mainstream, and the fact that Series60 has unfortunately borne the (small) brunt of smartphone viruses so far it seems, are the rest of us really that bothered at the moment? Will we be in say 18 months time? Doubt it.
But what say you IntoMobile readers? Should we be wary?