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First mobile phone virus
- Thread starter Salem
- Start date
- Status
It's funny that they think a firewall would pervent such activity. The phones are not being infected by a vulnerability in bluetooth. The user of the phone has to accept the file transfer. A "firewall" would just block the file transfer. The user would have an option to accept the file, this mirrors the setup currently in place. Virus scanning would require more memory than most of these phones have right now. Blocking all activity would render bluetooth a useless technology.
Most laptops have IR capabilities, but this was never a virus problem. The main reason is that most IR devices had to be set up to listen manually. Any IR connection was very likely to be intentional. Bluetooth is a bit more of a problem because it uses RF and not a point to point, but a broadcast. Laptops and even PC's are coming with Bluetooth today. My PC is home built and the mainboard is about 2 years old, but it has Bluetooth capabilities (disabled in BIOS mind you).
I think the bigger problem will be with the bluetooth protocol much like the other WiFi products have been hammered with security problems once they increase in use. Where I work they have a huge effort going on to crack down on wireless access points that are not managed by our in house IT Security.
We've learned this lesson a hundred times. Email attachments, web scripts, remote plug and play, default user shares, etc. Default ease of use for the uneducated user is a default security nightmare for IT.
Nathan aka: zaz (zaznet)
zaz@zaz.net
Most laptops have IR capabilities, but this was never a virus problem. The main reason is that most IR devices had to be set up to listen manually. Any IR connection was very likely to be intentional. Bluetooth is a bit more of a problem because it uses RF and not a point to point, but a broadcast. Laptops and even PC's are coming with Bluetooth today. My PC is home built and the mainboard is about 2 years old, but it has Bluetooth capabilities (disabled in BIOS mind you).
I think the bigger problem will be with the bluetooth protocol much like the other WiFi products have been hammered with security problems once they increase in use. Where I work they have a huge effort going on to crack down on wireless access points that are not managed by our in house IT Security.
We've learned this lesson a hundred times. Email attachments, web scripts, remote plug and play, default user shares, etc. Default ease of use for the uneducated user is a default security nightmare for IT.
Nathan aka: zaz (zaznet)
zaz@zaz.net
- Status
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