Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Do We Really Need Antivirus Solutions for Windows Mobile?
Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "THOUGHT" @ 02:00 AM
"McAfee, Inc. has released McAfee VirusScan Mobile and McAfee VirusScan Mobile Enterprise Edition for the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform. The company says this new version helps protect users of Windows Mobile 5.0 against the latest malware and attacks, including what the company calls SMiShing attacks, or phishing scams via SMS. McAfee VirusScan Mobile and McAfee VirusScan Mobile Enterprise Edition protect Windows Mobile 5.0 user devices from attacks via SMS, MMS, Bluetooth and other entry points. The software protects against the threats by automatically detecting and cleaning infected files before they can infect the device."
I really don't get this. There's been nary a blip in terms of spyware/malware/trojans/viruses that target Windows Mobile but McAfee thinks we should fork out $29.99 a year to protect our devices from a virtually non-existent threat. The pandemic of spyware et. al. is pretty serious as far as our desktops are concerned, but that's on a different platform. Just because it says Windows on the front doesn't mean that what works or is a problem on WinXP, will be a problem with Windows Mobile - they're two very different OSs.
Let's take it through and see what we get - many spyware/malware programs run off ActiveX controls or VBScript that target Outlook or your web browser, not exactly a problem in Windows Mobile when VB support isn't even included any more. Phishing/SMiShing? Requires user input, and a bit of common sense can tell you not to give out your usernames/passwords. Trojans/Viruses? Win32 executables, 'nuff said. Rootkits? On Windows Mobile? Come'on! So where does that leave us? Symbian viruses?;)
Just for kicks I ran a search through the McAfee threat library for 'mobile' and got 31 hits, which broke down as follows:
16 Symbian viruses
5 Win32 worms
4 mobile phone hoaxes
2 VBS worms
2 malicious Win 32 programs
None of these work on Windows Mobile. The two remaining threats were RedBrowser.a (a J2ME trojan) and Duts.1520 (WinCE virus). So it sounds like there is a potential threat right? The J2ME trojan would not run on most Windows Mobile PDAs, except those equiped with a JVM, but some of the HTC phones do have them. The WinCE virus would obviously run on any Windows Mobile device. Here's the kicker - they're both proof of concept. So we are invited to subscribe to an antivirus/malware solution (a firewall is on the way, too), which purports to protect our devices from an external threat that consists of proofs of concept! Somebody's cynically banking on peoples indentification of Windows with Windows Mobile here. Color me sceptical.
Do security threats exist? Yes. Will real, out-in-the-wild viruses, spyware, malware, trojans etc targeting WM eventually appear? With WM-driven phones becoming increasingly mainstream, that seems inevitable. Should you run out and get an antivirus solution right now? Sounds premature to me - what do you think?
I really don't get this. There's been nary a blip in terms of spyware/malware/trojans/viruses that target Windows Mobile but McAfee thinks we should fork out $29.99 a year to protect our devices from a virtually non-existent threat. The pandemic of spyware et. al. is pretty serious as far as our desktops are concerned, but that's on a different platform. Just because it says Windows on the front doesn't mean that what works or is a problem on WinXP, will be a problem with Windows Mobile - they're two very different OSs.
Let's take it through and see what we get - many spyware/malware programs run off ActiveX controls or VBScript that target Outlook or your web browser, not exactly a problem in Windows Mobile when VB support isn't even included any more. Phishing/SMiShing? Requires user input, and a bit of common sense can tell you not to give out your usernames/passwords. Trojans/Viruses? Win32 executables, 'nuff said. Rootkits? On Windows Mobile? Come'on! So where does that leave us? Symbian viruses?;)
Just for kicks I ran a search through the McAfee threat library for 'mobile' and got 31 hits, which broke down as follows:
16 Symbian viruses
5 Win32 worms
4 mobile phone hoaxes
2 VBS worms
2 malicious Win 32 programs
None of these work on Windows Mobile. The two remaining threats were RedBrowser.a (a J2ME trojan) and Duts.1520 (WinCE virus). So it sounds like there is a potential threat right? The J2ME trojan would not run on most Windows Mobile PDAs, except those equiped with a JVM, but some of the HTC phones do have them. The WinCE virus would obviously run on any Windows Mobile device. Here's the kicker - they're both proof of concept. So we are invited to subscribe to an antivirus/malware solution (a firewall is on the way, too), which purports to protect our devices from an external threat that consists of proofs of concept! Somebody's cynically banking on peoples indentification of Windows with Windows Mobile here. Color me sceptical.
Do security threats exist? Yes. Will real, out-in-the-wild viruses, spyware, malware, trojans etc targeting WM eventually appear? With WM-driven phones becoming increasingly mainstream, that seems inevitable. Should you run out and get an antivirus solution right now? Sounds premature to me - what do you think?
