May 26 2010
Cell Phone Antivirus
Posted by: CameraPhonesPlaza in Smartphone, Special
These days, cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have become more than indispensable tools for the highly mobile workforces. Such devices, small and relatively inexpensive, can be used for an extended range of functions, including sending and receiving electronic mail, storing documents, delivering presentations, and remotely accessing data. Even though they provide increased productivity benefits, these devices also bring new risks for organizations.
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You can find quite a large quantity of information about the threats and the associated technology risks, and also the available safeguards to mitigate them. Especially organizations can use this information to increase security and reduce the incidents involving cell phone and PDA services. Lately, these devices can be used not only for voice calls, simple text messages but also for Personal Information Management (PIM), such as phonebook, calendar and notepad and an extended range of functions usually performed at a desktop computer. These functions include sending and receiving electronic mail, browsing the Web, storing and modifying documents, delivering presentations and remotely accessing data. Cell phones as mobile handled devices also possess specialized built-in hardware, like cameras, Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, and reduced-size removable media card slots, employing a wide range of wireless interfaces. Also includes a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth and more types of cellular interfaces.

Because of their small size the usage outside the office, these handheld devices can be easier to misplace or to get stolen than a laptop or notebook computer. The problem is that if these devices fall on the wrong hands, gaining access to the stored information or accessing remotely data can be relatively easy.
The communication networks, desktop synchronization and storage media can be the means of delivering malware to handled devices. Malware is very often disguised as a game, device patch, utility or some other useful third-party application that might be available for download. Users must be careful, because once installed malware can initiate a range of attacks and spread itself on other devices.
Especially cell phones and PDAs ca be the subject to spam, including text messages and voice mail to the additional electronic mail. Deleting spam can be inconvenient and charges might apply for inbound activity.
Organizations are encouraged to make decisions about configuring mobile handheld devices securely and consistently, when developing and following a well-designed implementation. Developing such plans would help identifying critical issues and guiding administrators in making correct decisions between usability, performance, and risks. The issues organizations should focus on, are system contingency, continuity of operations, and disaster recovery plans.
Organizations must ensure that handheld devices are deployed, configured and manages, in order to meet the company`s security requirements and objectives. Many cell phone security issues can be avoided with an appropriate configuration. Usually, the security configuration guides or checklists (if available) can assist administrators to provide security for systems, consistently and efficiently.

Cell phone and PDA security generally includes the following steps: applying available critical patches and upgrading the operating systems; eliminating or disabling unnecessary services and applications; installing and configuring additional needed applications; configuring user authentication and accessing controls; configuring resource controls. Absolutely necessary are the installment and configuration of additional required security controls, including content encryption, remote content erasure, firewall and antivirus, intrusion detection, antispam, and virtual private network software. Of course, the permanent performance of security testing.









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