Malware and Anti-malware now a distant memory
Steve ponders the fall and fall of the mobile anti-virus (malware) scene, but still sounds a note of caution.
Walking around this year's Smartphone Show in London this week, one thought suddenly struck me - where were the 'anti-virus' vendors? In 2006, I had great fun walking up to their stands and asking either 'So er.... how many viruses have you discovered so far for S60 3rd Edition or UIQ 3' or 'OK, I'm Joe Public and everything's turned on - go on, infect me'. This year, no such fun or frolics...
Regular readers here will remember that I've been campaigning for years that Symbian OS smartphones are inherently safe from malware. Older S60 devices had a few 'viruses' targetted at them but even these required explicit acceptance with multiple 'Yes' keypresses by each user before anything could be installed. In a few countries where software ethics are, shall we say, more flexible, a few minor outbreaks occurred, with (mainly young) people trying out 'free' applications that they'd been beamed and happily agreeing to everything. But there were no, repeat no major outbreaks, despite scare story after scare story from at least five different anti-virus developers, each with a huge vested interest in keeping the scare stories running.
And then came Symbian OS 9 - a break in application compatibility for users, which was a pain, but a quantum leap in overall security that meant that any application that hadn't been thoroughly checked wasn't allowed invisible access to dangerous features within the phone (e.g. Bluetooth/email). Bingo. In one fell swoop, true viruses that could damage and replicate were rendered not just rare and unlikely, but 99.99% impossible.
The absolute worst case scenario under Symbian OS 9 (that means S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 to you and I) is that someone might make up a so-called 'trojan', a malicious program pretending to be something it isn't, such as a cracked game or commercial application. But even here, once installed (after the usual installation prompts) any dangerous activity (such as wanting to send a message by Bluetooth, SMS, MMS or email) would need the user to manually approve each and every attempt. Even the most clueless user in the world would surely work out that the new application was a trojan after having to spend his or her entire time approving breakout attempts?
So, at the Smartphone Show in 2006 we had various anti-virus/security firms peddling their wares and hanging on, under challenges, by virtue of there still being lots of new S60 2nd Edition devices being sold and by saying that 'hey, it's best to play safe'. But S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 have now been out for at least 18 months in the real world and have been selling in large numbers. And there's not a single instance of a virus. Not one. because the OS makes such existence impossible.
Which brings me back to my observation about the 2007 show and the extremely low profile of third party security software. I'm guessing that even the hype merchants at the likes of F-Secure couldn't stand up at a stall and, with their hand on their hearts, say that users needed anti-virus software protection.
Anti-virus applications still exist for Symbian OS 9, for political reasons, but tend to be included in 'not installed' form. As with the bloated monster that's the Norton utility suite on the Windows desktop and which causes more problems than it solves, installing a so-called 'anti-virus' utility on a Symbian OS 9-powered smartphone is just a big waste of battery power, of RAM and of processor time. And don't even bother asking about firewalls, as test after test has shown that Symbian OS's Internet ports have always been 100% secure from random probes.
Tempting it is to claim any credit for the disappearance of mobile malware hype, the main credit has, of course, to go to Symbian for enforcing OS 9's Platform Security in the first place. Not every mobile world technology initiative gets proved 100% right, but 'PlatSec' was, for me, right on the nail and came at just the right time.
Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 18th October 2007
Published by Steve Litchfield at 10:05 UTC, October 17th 2007
Categories: How To, Comment, Software
Platforms: Series 60, UIQ, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3
Feature Discussion
[quote]Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.
Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction.[/quote]
[URL="http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/third-party-applications-on-the-iphone-translated"]Be sure to check the hilarious translation by Russ[/URL].
Enterprise IT people want to to be able to install something so that if something does happen they can point to what they tried to do. To bear fair the F-Secure solution does allow for update to go out quite rapidly. The fact it is highly unlikely to happens does not mean it is impossible. However its unlikely the security applications could catch whatever the breach was... Enterprise thinking seems to define rational explanation at times.
Steve
I can think of several methods malware could be introduced on OS 9.x based platform. Although all of them are quite unlikely, but if there was an actual virus outbreak I think the threat might be a bit more serious than outlined in this article. Here's why:
1) Your average user does not pay attention to various warnings shown by the operating system. What is worse, all the numerous warning and information dialogs Symbian requires even legitimate applications show, have got people used to pressing "yes". (Windows Vista is nearly as bad in this extent.)
2) Sure, even if the device is infected, "a working device is only a hard reset or card format away". Only?!? For many of us, having your device hard reset is not simply a minor inconvenience. Of course you can disinfect a compromised PC too by format and reinstall, but what about all the data that gets lost in the process?
3) If the malware takes advantage of a vulnerability in the OS, the only way to solve the problem for real is to do a firmware upgrade. Even though the vendors have set up sites where end users may update the firmware by themselves, how many of them actually does that? There are a LOT of people out there who don't even know they are using a Symbian based mobile phone, let alone that there would be a site to do firmware upgrades.
On [URL="http://www.orangemobilephones.org.uk/nokia_e51.html"]this page about the E51[/URL], it says:
[quote] Concerned you might attract a virus in your handset? Well, there’s good news. Nokia E51 has support for Symantec, F-Secure, McAfee, and Trend Micro antivirus software that keep your handset free from virus attack. These applications are accessible through download tool provided in the handset. Nokia E51 also supports Windows Live and Yahoo! that can be downloaded.[/quote]
Is there anyone who has suffered from malware on OS 9.x?
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