Symantec pushes mobile security onto Android and iOS

Symantec is extending its support of smartphone platforms in a bid to make its security and management technology as ubiquitous in the mobile world as it is on the desktop. The security giant announced added support for Android and Apple iOS platforms to its mobile security and management portfolio during the opening of its …

[JB]

Today mobile phones...

...tomorrow, the world! Honestly, this just smacks of an industry who are desperately expanding. Desktop market is saturated, where next? Ah, mobiles! All we need is yet another process slowing down my little 600MHz processor, it's bad enough on my desktop! We'll have it on our web-enabled TVs next, whenever they get popular.

[Pat 11]

Bloat

Good luck with this, all their security crud just slows devices down, and I didn't notice an excess of processing power on my Android phone. What it does need is a firewall to stop apps guffing my personal info to all and sundry without me being able to even know about it. But that's not currently possible.

[sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD]

Firewall for android.

Yep, totally agree here. On an unrooted phone it seems tricky if not impossible.

Maybe if enough noise is made, google may build some sort of infrastructure in to future androids to allow for this, but I fear at the moment the only recourse is to root the phone, find out how android really ticks on the inside and build and install your own filter. How difficult this is, I really do not know. It's linux but not as we commonly know it. I fear it's beyond an evenings work for the average reader here (someone prove me wrong and do it!).

I really cannot stand vendors and telcos wanting to keep locking things down, but in fairness, at least google has appeared to unofficially pander to those wanting to root their phones and not made it too difficult a process.

Long may they at least continue this and not get too greedy.

Needless to say I would buy an android over an iphone, but only by just this much .

[Fuzz]

features?

"device security, encryption and authentication. Password policy enforcement, remote wipe and device inventory functions"

Don't you get all these included with Windows mobile+exchange and, I presume, blackberry with BES?

[Lottie]

Off switch

If it's anything like their desktop range, I might save myself a few quid and just switch the phone off. It'll be just as useable.

[JaitcH]

Encryption by Symantec? What a joke, a bloody great back door for the Government!

Symantec is too close to governments to entrust with encrypting your secrets.

Another "me, too" company we can do without on the smarter side of telephony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh do shut up....

Is amanfrommars posting under a new name these days?

[E 2]

Gahh

The mobile CPU makers will love this. You're going to need a Core2 class CPU to run the AV code.

[dssf]

Why should the phone need this stuff?

The phone should have MOST of its protection provided by the carriers. Messages and attachments definitely should be scanned on THEIR hardware when it is not peer-to-peer transmission or not local such as USB/Bluetooth/W-Fi.

An IDS (Intrusino Detection System) with a firewall is definitely needed to alert the device owner to attempted sniffing. Even if a firewall blocks attempts, the mobile user may want to "but out" of the dodgey area in case the attack is sophisticated enough to increase its power and speed to crack the device. At the very least, the owner can yank the battery and nix intrustions right there.

The SD cards ... Uhhh, why are these boneheads obstructing the data card with the battery or sticking it into places that are deliberately non-hot-remove? Oh, they worry about static and lost data? Heck, i want to be able to remove and change cards without powercycling (whether or not battery removal is requred) without turning off the phone, and without gimmickery. If i sense my phone is about to be imperilled, i could eject my card with the push of a fingernail and leave it in my pocket in case i am about to be robbed (or otherwise "relieved) of my phone.

Also, if my phone had an IDS and it were being hacked/cracked, it might be useful to swap data cards and put the phone into a forensics record mode so that i can either out the intruder or assist law enforcement, or out them, too, if they are the real culprits.

We need protection BEFORE sophisticated attacks become mainstream. And, we need it mostly at the carrier's iron. Symantec et al are going to rake in a ton of dough because Google and the carriers are not educating and empowering users with knowledge and tools.

[Andy E]

Will it be as bad as their PC software?

I have just spent a Sunday morning cleaning a Trojan off a PC allegedly protected with Symantec's 360 security suite. Even though the Trojan has been known about for at least 4 years, the Symantec software failed to spot it. This is not the first time I have had to clean out a virus because the installed Symantec software decided to take the day off.

Symantec anti-virus software in particular has a very poor reputation and from what I have seen, rightly so. It's CPU intensive, pervasive, delights in stopping you from doing what you want to do and is basically crap.

Seeing as it hogs resources on a PC it should be fun to see it try and run on a smart phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch

I used to use Norton 2010 but it was just a waste of resources and a bunch of horrendous eye candy, not to mention questionably ineffective. Also tried their mobile offering...really cr@p

So I tried loads of different wares including all their other major competitors and eventually settled on Kaspersky for the mobile, really excellent functionality including GPS location of missing device, and then for the laptop Comodo Internet Security which is really quite excellent and low in resources. Not plugging just sharing experiences.

[william henderson 1]

mobile

thats the last word i'de use to describe symantec's bloated slugware

[dssf]

Hopefully Trend Micro does better

But, a co-worker's machine got hit with some mediaplex whatever trojan. He's using Iexploder. I'm using firefox, with various things like Better Privacy, Adblock Plus, and so on. (I don't block ALL the ads. Hardly any, actually.) Probably he surfed to a compromised (but, not a naughty) site. Took around 20 hours to scour his machine. Imagine if that happens to phones, aside from the vastly smaller storage capacity.