Cell phone antivirus

[Phoenix Within]

Since phones these days are like mini computers, are people running anti virus software in their phones? If so, what are you using?

While we're on the topic too, how about tablets?

[GordonH]

I don't have a smartphone but I do have a tablet so use avast mobile, they have free version.

http://www.avast.com/en-ca/free-mobile-security

[Phoenix Within]

Problem I find with the free versions is they tend to be memory heavy (in PC's anyway). Have you noticed a difference between pre and post installation on your speed?

[GordonH]

Avast is best I found without a lot a crap. It has not slowed down either my tablet or desktop.

[Phoenix Within]

Good to know. thanks.

[rekabis]

If you are running an iPhone or iPad, there is nothing yet “in the wild” that can infect you, although there have been a number of proof-of-concept “malware injectors” that make use of wall warts and other specially designed devices. These are meant to look like traditional charging cubes but are actually a complex series of chips designed to pair with the device over the USB cable and forcibly root the phone using known 0-day exploits.

So as long as you don’t connect to an untrusted wall wart in order to charge your iDevice, you are 100% safe with iOS. That is also why there is no antivirus product yet available for iOS -- because there is absolutely no need for one.

Windows Phone has too small a market share to be a legitimate target, but they are vulnerable to all the same malware as Windows RT is capable of catching, which is quite a surprising amount.

Blackberry used to be just as safe as iOS (and as long as you are using *only* “Built For Blackberry” apps, it still is), however with OS 10.2 they opened up the app environment to include Android apps, and as such all bets are off; it is now trivially easy to become infected with Malware on Blackberry OS.

Android devices now account for well over 80% of all malware infections “in the wild” (AFAIK it’s actually closer to 98%) because a significant minority of apps - yes, even those in the Google App Store, not to mention secondary stores - are purpose-built malware disguised as legitimate apps. In other words, you get what you pay for; *bleep* hardware and *bleep* quality control begets a horrid user experience. Unfortunately, your *bleep* is still flapping in the wind because, even though Android apps are containerized and (theoretically) are unable to break out of their containers, it is only legitimate apps that follow the rules. And these apps include antivirus apps. Which therefore means that any antivirus app on an Android machine is nothing more than a warning system for anything other than stored files -- good luck trying to discover and quarantine malware apps.