Sigh. Another month, another needless high profile security scare. The BBC should know better. In this case, they talk to a Mr Coney, who (surprise, surprise) happens to sell security software. He's quoted as saying "One of common types we see now runs amok on the Symbian platform. These viruses work their way through the contact book, sending themselves out to every subscriber who has been called or has called that handset." What a load of rubbish, timed to go live on the eve of the Symbian show, too. Read on.
Viruses running amok? Really? Working their way through the contact book? Really?
On every single S60 3rd Edition phone (which is the majority, these days, and growing fast in terms of percentage points worldwide), Symbian OS 9 contains 'platform security', meaning that there's simply no way a piece of malware could call out in the way described without warning the user every single time it wants to do anything.
And that's assuming that the user was foolish enough to manually accept three or more explicit warnings during the installation of the said piece of malware.
And that's assuming that the user was foolish enough to accept the incoming Bluetooth or MMS item in the first place.
Maybe the latter might happen - people are curious, after all. But only a tiny percentage of people would click through all the warnings to install an application that they weren't expecting. And even then, the avalanche of warnings kicked off by the security system that's built into Symbian OS would quickly cause them to get suspicious and remove the piece of malware - before it has had a chance to do any 'running amok'...
Just say no, folks. Just say no.
Symbian OS phones do not need anti-virus software. They do not need firewall software. They do not need anti-spyware software.
