Earlier this week, Smobile Systems published a press release that claims 1 in 63 Symbian smartphones are infected with some sort of virus or trojan or malware of some sort. We all know this is garbage, but it’s important to dig into the facts a little bit, to see what’s really being said. The numbers come from a study conducted by Smobile Systems of 1958 Symbian-powered smartphones, which ‘revealed infections by spyware, viruses worms and trojans, as well as hundreds of unlicensed software programs installed on the handsets reviewed.’
Let’s stop there. Since when do ‘unlicensed software programs’ count as malware? Also, it should be noted that Smobile Systems bills itself as ‘the leading provider of security solutions for mobile phones.’ Well of course they’re going to tell you that there are viruses everywhere. Craig H, from the Symbian Foundation Security Blog, also noticed this bit of misleading information, and posted his rebuttal here.
Frankly, I’m getting really annoyed with the mobile security teams, such as Smobile and F-Secure publishing nonsense like this. I’ve used Symbian-powered smartphones for half a decade, and have talked to thousands of users, and have yet to be infected myself, or talk to someone who themselves had their smartphone infected with a virus or malware that wasn’t easily uninstalled. I’m also really pleased to see the new Symbian Foundation speaking out against this sort of thing. In the past, Symbian, Inc. seemed to turn a blind eye towards claims like this, with Nokia even pimping F-Secure in its on-device Download! app and pre-loading it on some devices.
Please note, I’m not saying that viruses, trojans, worms, and other malware doesn’t exist for the Symbian platform. It most definitely does, and you should exercise caution. However, shelling out money and wasting your phone’s valuable resources to ‘protect’ yourself is completely unnecessary.
Here’s a few things you can do to protect yourself, for free:
- Keep your Bluetooth connection turned off when you don’t need it.
- When you *do* need Bluetooth on, make sure it’s in ‘Hidden’ mode, rather than ‘Shown to all’.
- Don’t click on links in SMS messages that you were not expecting to receive.
- Only install applications from trusted sources. All of the applications in the Symbian-Guru Store have been verified as virus-free and are safe for you to use.
Also, of note, to the few of you who will point out that a few recent known viruses have been Symbian Signed, it appears as though the Symbian Foundation is actually doing something about that, which is stinkin awesome.
