Does your smartphone anti-virus software have limited functions?

By Patrick Lambert)

Translation: purpleendurer version 1st

In Patrick lanbert's view, the use of anti-virus software on smartphones is limited. Are you worried about this?

Our enterprise security field is constantly threatening, and most IT experts and administrators will not consider providing employees with unlocked computers. Logon to the system, anti-virus, network protection, and so on provide in-depth security methods to become an enterprise principle. Anti-Virus companies provide a wide range of kits that use a central control point to secure devices and facilities such as computers, networks, and servers. But what about smartphones? As iPhone and Android devices become more and more popular, employees no longer simply regard the company's own mobile phone as a communication device. Now, they use their mobile phones to read email attachments, download files, and even use the virtual private network inside the Enterprise Firewall. Therefore, it is not surprising that we often hear about potential security issues. Is it time to install anti-virus software on your smartphone?

Before answering this question, it is important to understand how modern smart phones work and how they differ from a typical computer. In a normal system, a program can access all system resources. All unprotected memory, hard drive content, and so on can be read, unless the system is particularly locked. Therefore, if an employee opens a webpage, downloads a malicious software, and then reads the buttons in a browser that has not been fully patched, scan the useful file types on the hard disk and send them back over the network. The latest version of UAC, such as Windows Vista and 7, helps mitigate such dangers, but we all know that it cannot stop everything.

The operating mode of modern smartphones using systems such as IOS and Android is not the same. On the contrary, each application has its own working environment and cannot access data of other applications. You can think that every application runs in its own VM. This is a huge security improvement, which means that no malware can cause great harm through simple installation. In addition, there is at least an additional benefit for iOS, that is, any application must be downloaded from the App Store, and the app store will review potential problems of the application. For Android, Google launched the new service "Bouncer (trampoline)" to help scan problematic applications, but it is not foolproof.

Obviously, a single application may cause quite limited troubles. But this also means that anti-virus software cannot do more. Any anti-virus software installed on your mobile phone will not be able to scan any other applications and any data used by these applications. Both iOS and Android platforms have anti-virus software, but their capabilities are limited unless you jailbreak or get the root permission of the device. For example, virusbarrier is an iOS anti-virus software that costs $2.99 in app store. But it does not scan anything because it cannot. Conversely, if you want to scan email attachments, you must send the email to the application. This process is quite annoying, so it is rarely used. There are more active scanning programs on Android, such as avast! Mobile Security, which allows you to perform daily or weekly scans. However, some of its functions can only run on mobile phones that have the root permission. In addition, no real viruses have been detected on smartphones. On the contrary, threats are usually different. We have seen that the application can read and send information from the mobile phone. A malicious Android Application tried to enter the market and sent all the contact information to a third party. Other applications will begin sending SMS messages to a foreign address that is expected to increase your bill. So far, we have not seen more malware that somehow try to read confidential data from other applications; however, as zdnet's Ryan nilin wrote, "remote control Android malware steals bank creden。", they are constantly evolving.

So what should we do when it comes to mobile phone security? There are many features that you can turn on, such as lock screen. If someone tries to guess the password several times, it will make sure that the data on the device is erased and has the ability to track and remotely erase the data on the device. All these features are available on any modern mobile phone platform and can be implemented by any IT administrator.

Now, we are beginning to see that enterprise condoms are also implementing various smartphone-related functions. For example, if someone uses a smart phone to access the VPN, you can select a function module to view the security features it supports or block them in other ways. So I suggest you don't worry, don't try to run anti-virus software on your mobile phone. It only barely works, but any background process occupies valuable battery life and resources. On the contrary, if you have very sensitive files, do not make them available on your smartphone. Make good use of the security features on your smartphone, and you will be in a good state.

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