Threat of mobile viruses just scaremongering tactic?

[Colin Dunstan]

Remember our discussion a few days ago in which anti-virus company McAfee claimed that mobile viruses are now on the move? McAfee said it had detected around 50 different mobile viruses by now. Wireless company WDSGlobal describes these statements as pure scaremongering tactic:

"If you look at the viruses out there, currently there are about 14 core viruses, the majority of which are fairly benign. They are mostly developed as 'proof of concept' to warn manufacturers of handsets and operating systems or the antivirus industry about potential vulnerabilities," Doug Overton, head of communications for WDSGlobal said.

In fact, mobile phone viruses are so infrequent that when the BBC wanted to film one executing, it took Overton and his colleagues three days of searching the Internet just to find the code for one such virus.

Isn't it sad enough that we have to constantly worry about the threat of new viruses? We don't need companies such as McAfee and Symantec to create a myth of viruses hyping the general public with unnecessary fear of "mobile virus diseases."

[via Slashdot]

[doctorow]

Originally Posted by Morpheus

Isn't it sad enough that we have to constantly worry about the threat of new viruses? We don't need companies such as McAfee and Symantec to create a myth of viruses.

Kinda funny you name it. Just today, Symantec announced its "Mobile Security 4.0 for Symbian," which includes anti-virus protection and (I am holding my breath!) firewall technologies!

According to the March 2005 bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report issued by Symantec, the first worm to target smartphones, Cabir, was released in June 2004. By the end of December 2004, 11 new variants of Cabir were reported, and in February 2005 Cabir surfaced for the first time in the United States in the wild. Other threats to smartphones also have been reported over the last nine months, including several Trojan horses-e.g., Mos, Skulls, and CommWarrior.

Blabla... and here comes the kick: Symantec Mobile Security 4.0 for Symbian is available as a two-year plan and costs US$44.95. That's more than what I've paid for my cell phone!