Chennai : Quick Heal, India’s leading anti-virus solution providers, today launched PC2Mobile Scan -the world’s first mobile phone virus scan.
Addressing newsmen here, Quick Heal’s Director & CTO, Mr. Sanjay Katkar said: “Today most mobile phones, smart phones more specifically, offer push mail services. Consequently, these smart mobiles are prone to malware attacks, although none have been reported so far. But with smart phones and mobile applications gaining increasing acceptance, industry pundits predict mobiles as the next target for cyber criminals. While multinational companies offer anti-virus protection for high end phones and PDAs. The rest … and the biggest lot of common users … are left without any anti-virus protection”.
Using ‘PC2Moblie Scan Technology’ you can easily find out if the mobile phone is having any virus infection. You just have to connect the mobile phone to the PC or laptop using USB Cable and scan the phone from Quick Heal Total Security 2010 installed on the PC. If your PC or laptop is Bluetooth enabled and if your mobile phone is Bluetooth enabled then the mobile phone can also be scanned over Bluetooth connection.
“For example a virus that is designed for Symbian operating system which is widely used in mobile phones can infect (drop) a virus file on mobile phone that is not a having Symbian operating system. Even though the virus will not get active on these non-Symbian mobile phones they still occupy lots of space on phone memory or memory card causing loss of space”, says Sanjay Katkar.
Quick Heal Total Security 2010, which has feature of PC2Moblie supports 581+ models of different makes (mid range to higher end PDAs), can be used to remove these dormant virus dropped files from even through a non-Symbian mobile phone as well.
“Currently Quick Heal has more than 30% market share in Indian Anti Virus Market. We have also been ranked No.1 by leading publications like CRN. Our commitment towards good product performance & strong customer support since last 15 yrs have resulted into Rs. 100 crore revenues in 2009-10. I am confident that in the coming years, Quick Heal Technologies will place India firmly on the internet security landscape as a global major”, says Sanjay Katkar.
Adds Quick Heal’s Vice president – Sales & Marketing, Mr.Abhijit Jorvekar: “Smart phones are going to pose greater security risk to corporations as these phones are given abilities to access corporate networks in real time just as laptops have been doing it. This presents hackers and cyber criminals with wider opportunity to use smart phones to compromise corporate network and access sensitive data. This is going to be a big challenge for corporate security in coming days.”
PC2Moblie scan feature detects all mobile platform viruses (platforms like Symbian OS, Windows Moblie OS and other Linux based mobile OS) and supports scanning of mobile phone based on Symbian operating system, Windows Operating System and also supports proprietary mobile firmware making it the only single product that supports virus scanning for variety of makes of mobile phones available from vendors such as Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Motorola, O2, IMate, HP, HTC and Siemens.
According to the statistics from Quick Heal Technologies they have identified and added detection for about 500+ different variants of mobile threats. Quick Heal Technologies has filed patent application for this revolutionary PC2Mobile Scan Technology and the application is in and advanced stage of patent pending status.
New generation of viruses can make your mobile phone unstable; will crash the mobile OS occasionally. It can slow down the performance of the phone. It can send infected MMS to all the contacts saved in the mobile phone. These malware can also increase your phone bill by sending unsolicited MMS & SMS. One of the mobile user’s phone content was wiped clean after he downloaded a Trojan infested ringtone. Just like PC viruses some mobile viruses are just annoying like it may keep on displaying a silly joke or change the application icons to some strange image. Some may freeze your mobile completely more frequently.
Experts are predicting that this can go to more serious extent as hackers try to explore the “pranking for profit” way to earn something. This can involve things like redirecting the calls over a different carrier or a service provider or a premium calls that can lead to hefty phone bills. Attaching an image file to every MMS sent which can again lead to increase in phone bill. Sending of automatic multiple SMS for influencing the SMS poll results. Or “vishing,” when you’ll get a voice call that asks for information, faking it by posing as a legitimate business. A downloaded application may send information about your phone account to hackers. Snoop ware might capture your keypad clicks.
Viruses or worms are not the only threats on mobile phones we have started to see newer kind of spying tools and techniques that can invade your privacy. A Seattle family was watched, monitored and even threatened because of spyware on their cell phone. This demonstrates that one can monitor all the calls, SMS and other activities over mobile phone remotely without the mobile phone owner knowing that his every activity on mobile phone is being monitored.
Rolling out 3G networks and services in India is going to make Internet access really fast and easy on mobile devices. This means higher speed broadband, more information more content and connectivity. 3G operators will also be offering new wider range of mobile services like real time high quality audio/video transmission. This is going to change the way we communicate and use mobile handsets. More consumers will be opting for smart phones. So where customers go, money follows and where there is money crime follows. This is also going to open increased opportunities for virus writers and hackers to attack these newer devices.
Security experts at Quick Heal Technologies say that a virus can infect a mobile phone by various ways like Internet downloads, MMS (Multimedia Messaging service) attachments, websites, emails and bluetooth transfers to name a few. Infection can appear as disguised message like game download or an update to your phone’s system or a ringtone or some kind of alert.
