Reports: Smartphone Malware Threat Rising, Google Lockdown Could Help Competitors

From DailyTech: Trojan malware not only affected some 260,000 Android users last month, it also highlighted the vulnerability of an open platform (which Wired covered in depth). The debacle has shed light on the implications of downloading apps from unknown sources.

A report from eWeek yesterday highlights the vulnerability of all smartphones to malware. While Android is perhaps the most susceptible, it is not the only one. Malware exists on all the major mobile platforms -- on BlackBerries, iPhones, and Windows Phone 7 devices -- although apps can only be retrieved from the built-in markets on RIM and Apple devices (WP7 is too new of territory to know in that regard).

The report goes through a number of steps to safeguard your smartphone against malware, but it can all be boiled down to one simple guideline: use common sense. Don't download apps from unknown, untrusted sources; don't download anything that sounds too good to be true; encrypt data when possible; don't store sensitive information on your device; etc.

Speaking of common sense, eWeek also notes that the reported Google lockdown on developers may benefit its competitors.

"In effect Google, after failing at being different from Microsoft, is going to try and beat Microsoft at Microsoft’s own game," Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group, wrote in to eWeek. "That virtually never works, which will likely force them to get closer and closer to Apple’s model.

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