Trend Micro will become the latest major anti-virus
software company to provide protection against mobile phone viruses
with the release today of Trend Micro Mobile Security
1.0.
Smartphone users will be able to download and use the new
anti-virus and anti-spam software for free until June 2005. Mobile
Security is said to protect mobile phones running the Symbian and
Microsoft Windows Mobile operating systems against mobile threats,
such as the recent Skulls trojan and Cabir worm, as well as
filtering for SMS spam.
Todd Thiemann, director of device security marketing at Trend
Micro, said the company hoped to attract hordes of new customers
who would purchase or receive sophisticated new handsets as gifts
over Christmas.
Like other anti-virus software, Mobile Security spots viruses by
using signatures, in this case developed by Trend Micro. Users can
also scan storage devices inserted into supported phones, or
initiate scans of the mobile device manually.
Thiemann said new anti-virus and anti-spam signatures could be
sent to the mobile device using GPRS, a wireless communication
service for connecting mobile phones to the internet that is common
in 3G devices. Alternatively, updates can be transferred using
Microsoft's Activesync.
Mobile Security will support a wide range of devices that run
the Windows Mobile 2003 or Symbian OS 7.0 operating systems. A
version of the product for phones running Windows Mobile, including
the Motorola MPx200, O2 XPhone and Orange SA SPV C500, is already
available.
Trend Micro plans a version for phones that use the Symbian
operating system by January, 2005, including support for the Sony
Ericsson Mobile Communications AB P800, P900 and P910, and Motorola
A920, A925 and A1000.
The company will also release a version of the software for
mobile phones and PDAs running Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket
PC-Phone Edition in January.
Version 1.0 will expire in June, when the company plans to have
a software update available that will add new features including
firewall and data encryption features.
Trend Micro's anti-virus software for mobile devices
follows Symantec's release of Symantec Client Security software for
the Nokia 9500 Communicator and the 9300 smartphone model, which
run Symbian.
Finnish anti-virus company F-Secure also sells mobile anti-virus
products for consumers and mobile operators. The company has
products for phones using Nokia's Series 60 platform and the Nokia
9200 Communicator, as well as for Pocket PCs.
Despite the publicity from anti-virus companies, most experts
agree that mobile phone viruses and worms are in their infancy. The
first mobile phone worm, dubbed Cabir, only appeared in June. Since
then, only a handful of new malicious programs that target mobile
devices have appeared, and none has spread widely. New threats
include the Skulls trojan, which targets devices running
Symbian.
Thiemann acknowledged that the threat of infection through a
mobile device was remote, but said that mobile device worms and
viruses were likely to become more of a problem as consumers
adopted a newer generation of phones with advanced networking and
software functions.
While Cabir tried to spread through Bluetooth wireless
connections, future worms and viruses could find other ways to
frustrate mobile users, such as opening GPRS links and running up
charges, or pushing links to virulent web pages to phones.
"Moving forward, this is going to be a problem that could be as
big as the virus problem on PCs," said Thiemann.
Trend Micro has not decided on an eventual price for the
software or subscription services yet, but the software could
eventually be sold through direct downloads, or bundled with
services offered by mobile providers.
Paul Roberts writes for IDG News Service