The BBC have published another hype-filled virus scoop. F-Secure again are the villains of the piece, proclaiming the "growing number of viruses that infect handsets", "hopping from phone to phone", predicting that Symbian viruses "will eventually become as big a nuisance as Windows viruses". What rubbish. Read on...

Let's take the three quotes in turn:
1) 'growing'? The number of people infected by Symbian OS malware, worldwide, is probably in the hundreds, maybe thousands at most, usually because the users have been trying out cracked/illegal 'warez' software, either downloaded directly or receiving a helpful Bluetooth beam or MMS from a 'trusted' friend. Even at, say, 5000 infections, that's only 0.01% of Symbian OS smartphones. Hardly reason to panic. With continued awareness of the existence of Symbian OS malware and the dangers of illegal cracked software, the number of infections should actually be dropping.
2) 'hopping from phone to phone'? Oh yes, they conveniently left out the part about the recipient having to explicitly say "yes", they want the incoming connecton, "yes", they want the applications, "yes", they know the application is untrusted, etc. We're talking extreme visibility here, the exact opposite of stealthy Windows viruses that infect without fuss or intervention.
3) 'as big a nuisance as Windows viruses'? Given that an unprotected Windows PC will be infected silently within 2 minutes of first going online, while you're more likely to win your National Lottery than come across a Symbian OS 'virus' first hand, this is plainly nonsense.

Shame on the BBC (I've written to them) for hosting this article. Shame on F-Secure (I've written to them as well) for continuing to put their own software ambitions before plain truth reporting. Shame, shame, shame. In these days of encouraging people to take their first baby steps with the power of Symbian OS, why try and frighten them with stories that have little basis in reality?

Steve Litchfield
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/viruses.htm