It appears it's McAfee's turn to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the Symbian world. I quote from their press release: "By comparison, a mobile threat... could infect up to 200 million connected smartphones simultaneously because the majority of these devices do not currently have mobile security protection installed". What rubbish. Read on...

For starters, how on earth is a threat going to infect 200 million smartphones simultaneously? And they're implying that any smartphone is vulnerable simply because it doesn't have "mobile security protection installed".

My initial challenge to malware authors still stands. Take as long as you want, with everything turned on, on all my Symbian OS-based devices. If anyone can infect me with anything at all, they win the grand prize. I've had exactly zero takers on this challenge...

Let me reiterate: the tens of millions of S60, UIQ and S80 smartphone owners out there need do NOTHING at all. Symbian OS is perfectly secure and any malicious program will have to go through several 'are you sure you want to install this?' questions before you can come to any harm. If you don't open unknown apps and don't download from 'warez' sites, you'll be perfectly safe. And that's not even mentioning that the chances of you coming into contact with an 'infected' smartphone is lower than winning the lottery...

Glad I got that off my chest. Comments welcome...