Antivirus for Your Handheld?

[Beatrix]

Do you have an antivirus software installed for your mobile phone or PDA? If you do, which one is it? With the potential for acquiring these virus threats, it would be a smart investment.

[Case]

Ive seen antivirus software for my Treo and honestly i dotn run any AV software on any of my PC's and not one infection in 13 years... I jsut know how to lock things down and honestly they are never full proof and cause more slow down on your system than any thing else so i cant imagen it being any diffrent on a phone or PDA phone... so i my self will stear clear of AV software for a phone or handheld..

[Beatrix]

I would understand not getting a virus on your handheld, but on a PC? I have heard other people's PC not having a worm infection even without an antivirus, but that seems a pretty tricky business. I suppose if the bluetooth is turned off in mobile phones, there is not much chance of getting it infected by a worm.

[Case]

evenif u have BT on u have to accept a transfer of any data to start with so yeah

[smoky]

Emmmm things like PDA viruses and worms are just hype atm.. I think i read something some where and it was saying that there isnt really any need for any antivirus stuff on your phone and just turn stuff off that ur not using.. Just like computers :P

[Case]

But there isnt really an eed for AV software on a computer either if you know what your doing.. when vastly they dont truely offer real protection any way.

[smoky]

I beg 2 differ.. What happens if a piece of software gets hacked and someone finds a hole in it? Hole leads to remote control, remote control leads to trojan or virus bein installed then ur screwed... Sophos AV is very good at what it does and it has picked up aload of stuff that i couldnt stop..

[Case]

your wrong and i got the proof hold on ill go get some linkage...

ZDNet Australia has a writeup about why AV apps don't work (http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/securifythis/soa/Why_popular_antivirus_apps_do_not_work_/0,39033341,39264249,00.htm) [CC (http://www.zdnet.com.au.nyud.net:8090/blogs/securifythis/soa/Why_popular_antivirus_apps_do_not_work_/0,39033341,39264249,00.htm)] [MD (http://www.mirrordot.com/find-mirror.html?http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/securifythis/soa/Why_popular_antivirus_apps_do_not_work_/0,39033341,39264249,00.htm)] [GC (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/securifythis/soa/Why_popular_antivirus_apps_do_not_work_/0,39033341,39264249,00.htm)]. The reason given is because the malware authors are writing code that will get around the signatures of the application by testing their code on the most popular anti-virus software before release.

This comes as a follow up to another article detailing the sad state of anti-virus (http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Eighty_percent_of_new_malware_defeats_antivirus/0,2000061744,39263949,00.htm) [CC (http://www.zdnet.com.au.nyud.net:8090/news/security/soa/Eighty_percent_of_new_malware_defeats_antivirus/0,2000061744,39263949,00.htm)] [MD (http://www.mirrordot.com/find-mirror.html?http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Eighty_percent_of_new_malware_defeats_antivirus/0,2000061744,39263949,00.htm)] [GC (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Eighty_percent_of_new_malware_defeats_antivirus/0,2000061744,39263949,00.htm)] software currently on the market.

This orignaly posted at /. (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/22/1612257&from=rss) if you read the artical you will see why i say that they just dont work and HAVE A GIANT MISS RATE!!

"The most popular brands of antivirus on the market… have an 80 percent miss rate… So if you are running these pieces of software, eight out of 10 pieces of malicious code are going to get in,"

By a end user that chooses to Hey lets install a AV app and im protected YAY bs a End user saying ok let me learn ok lock his system down by hand and implament a security policy on his own system and habbits of system use who will be at more risk? the AV App user... Hence why i see them as a waste of time and will just eat system resources when you need them for other things.


To Quote Mr T

I PITTY THA FOOL! who relies on a AV App...

[smoky]

Well id rather have 20% cover than none.. Of course AV's are goin to be behind, they cant see every virus/trojan about in the wild.. & im not even goin to start on custom made viruses/trojans.

Of course i dont believe that your 100% covered by just having an AV.. Thats just stupid.. What about shutting down stuff your not using.. Firewalls.. Detection systems and such.. If it was that easy to place an AV and ur done then life would be sooooo simple.. But i think its also plain stupid not to scan for problems..

[Case]

Yea but why bother? the point im tryign to make is that all my systems are locked down and NEVER have been infected i keep my network locked and closed and keep the human stupidity to a minamum and i am yet to have any vulnerabulity to any thing?

So why put your self in the hands of some thing that DOES NOT WORK to takign matetrs into your own hands and eleminating the threat by learning basic security policies and how to implament them in your own home system and home network....

Also I think your a bit confused

I beg 2 differ.. What happens if a piece of software gets hacked and someone finds a hole in it?

Ok first off Hacking well Even attempting to define the term "hacker" is difficult. Even within hacker society, the definitions range from societally very positive (dare I say characteristic of gifted and talented individuals) to criminal. In his book, "Fighting Computer Crime: A New Framework for Protecting Information" (1998), Donn B. Parker lists two basic principles hacker live by:

1. The belief that information sharing is a powerful good and that it is the ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources whenever possible.
2. The belief that system cracking for fun and exploitation is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism or breach of confidentiality.

Parker differentiates between benign and malicious hackers based on whether damage is performed, though in reality all hacking involves intrusion and a disregard for the efforts, works and property of others BUT NOT ALL WAYS TRUE!!! and i can not stress it enugh that i my self follow this etiquette when doing my own ventures. With out hacking we would never know of security flaws to FIX.

An antivirus software WILL NOT FIX SECURITY HOLES NOR WILL IT PROTECT THEM!

Hole leads to remote control,

Not true... Granted there are security holes in software not because of a virus or because of a trojan but because of shotty and poor programing and bad quality controll in development.. and frankly its scary how bad it is. Security flaws dont all ways mean remote controll thats just paranoia and well lack of knowlage lending to your imagenation runnign away from you... a simple flaw in how the MMX yes good old MMX comands go Pentium, handels certin code has a bad flaw... when one line of 5 words is executed on any processor that supports MMX commands, it causes it to quickly crash the system by causing it to go into a endless loop unstill it runs out of memory crashing and this happends so quickly in a matter of seconds. since than its been patched but thats not some thing that will get protected agaisnt by any AntiVirus what so ever.

Saying that security flaws will lead to remote access and remote controll are wrong and in many cases not true... but there are such security flaws that allow you to gain access to systems and data that you should not have access to.

remote control leads to trojan or virus bein installed then ur screwed...

No wrong again... well first of all lets talk about what a virus is and what a Trojan is... well lets start with the Real world non computer version, Princeton defines it as

(virology) ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein

Well a computer virus is much like the real thing. But a computer virus is a program, software that is self-replicating, malicious code that attaches itself to an application program or other executable system component and leaves no obvious signs of its presence. In many cases causes massive damage to the file system and files. Most of the time viruses cause data lose and damage to existing files.

NOTHING TO DO WITH REMOTE CONTROLL ooooooo BOOGIE MAN

Ok lets move on.. Trojans! well it comes from a native of ancient Troy where the soldies gave a big wooden horse as a gift when inside was a small army to gain access and raid the front gate to open it and allow the full army into the kingdom.

So again a computer Trojan is like the same thing..a program that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful; "the contents of a Trojan can be a virus or a worm"; "when he downloaded the free game it turned out to be a Trojan horse". Now these have all sorts of abusive actions they can allow remote access to a system they can use the system for its bidding. There is one that was made to attack a company that was pro DRM and developer of DRM code and basically a bunch of ass holes... So there is one Trojan that tried to infect as many systems as it could using security flaws to get on the system and than on the company' release date of what ever it was i cant remember once year all the systems infected get used to launch a Denial of Service attack on that company's main server...

Again will a anti virus keep you from getting infected? No not all ways and 80% of the time No it wont... will it protect those security flaws in your network and in your system software NOPE it wont...

So why not go to the root of the problem and fix it your dam self... nothing gets in and no need for a anti virus.

This is were being LAZZY and human stupidity comes in... people fear what they don't understand SIMPLY put and ACURATLY...

The most secure system out of the box is a APPLE OSX because they try hard to IDIOT proof their systems... where as PC Users need to get off their asses and learn how to secure their systems and implement a security policy to prevent problems such as Trojans and viruses. People don't do this and they expect one piece of software to do it for them... and im sorry you cant fix a car engine with a stick of gum.

You want a quick one shot fix and your not going to get it. Humans are flawed we make mistakes and because of human error there will ALL WAYS be bugs and flaws in a system and no way to cover it all and no way a piece of software can cover it with out human intervention.

[johntod]

really gud

[scarby]

very good!