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PDA Viruses: Exposed
Posted Wednesday, June 26, 2002 by PDA Center
When the first computers were introduced more than a decade ago, people didn?t consider the possibility that they could be used for malice. Within a few years however, people were already using them for no good by pirating software and creating destructive programs. Today, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are affected by viruses that ravage their systems, wipe their hard drive, and then send themselves to hundreds more people. Now the threat of viruses has moved to handheld computers.
One research firm estimates that by 2005, more than 120 million people will own a web-enabled phone or PDA. With that many people, it?s inevitable that terrible viruses will be in circulation. In fact, they already have started. Today, there are three known viruses: Vapor, Phage, and Liberty. Liberty is the most destructive, deleting everything on your PDA that wasn?t pre-installed.
PDA viruses can affect you in two ways. They can either destroy your PDA or they can destroy your desktop/notebook, whichever is your syncing computer. If you catch a PDA virus, it might not affect your PDA. It might affect your main computer though. When you synchronize your PDA, it can go straight to the main computer, and infect it. Or, of course, it could take the simpler approach and destroy or wipe or disable your PDA.
So what can you do to protect yourself? Well, major anti-virus companies, such as McAfee and Symantec, have started making anti-virus software for PDAs. These programs are very effective, but very expensive. A cheaper solution for Palm powered devices is F-Secure Anti-Virus for Palm OS. For Pocket PC devices, try F-Secure Anti-Virus for Pocket PC. You also should make sure that you have up-to-date anti-virus protection for your main computer too.
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