As last week’s Love Bug virus painfully illustrated, more computer viruses are being spread via e-mail, and they are growing increasingly destructive.
But despite the growing popularity of wireless e-mail services, the Love Bug fiasco remained largely a non-event in the wireless world. While some security companies may try to use the issue to drum up demand for wireless security solutions, e-mail-spread viruses likely will never have much negative effect on wireless devices.
Like many viruses spread via e-mail, the Love Bug virus hid inside an e-mail attachment the recipient had to open to activate the bug. This process actually provides a measure of protection for wireless devices.
“People usually don’t open attachments on handhelds,” said Brian Cotton, wireless analyst at Frost & Sullivan.
The Love Bug targeted Microsoft Outlook-based e-mail systems in particular. Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry solution, which forwards e-mail from Outlook and other servers to various models of RIM devices, will not forward messages with attachments.
In addition, many e-mail forwarding systems allow the wireless user to filter what they receive by subject and sender. While the Love Bug virus had the capability to look like it was sent by somebody the recipient knew and could have passed through the sender filter, the subject filter is another story.
But perhaps the greatest protection against e-mail-spread viruses on wireless devices is the pure lack of motivation. Hackers are not concerned with shutting down individual computers; they measure success by shutting down entire systems, and lots of them. They use e-mail because it is the easiest way to get to computer systems. Freezing up a few wireless phones isn’t going to make anybody famous.
“The amount of processing power needed to blow a virus out is probably more than is available on mobile handsets today,” Cotton said, “(and) the source code on a mobile is probably beyond your average hacker now.”
