Computer Associates Releases Free AV Scanner for Pocket PCs

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://ca.com/antivirus/pocketpc_offer/' target='_blank'>http://ca.com/antivirus/pocketpc_offer/</a><br /><br /></div>Despite the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17093">uncertain utility</a> of antivirus scanners on Pocket PCs, you can now get one for free -- CA is offering their product for download for a limited time.

[Mike Temporale]

Personally I find CA's antivirus software the best stuff on the market. The best thing is once you own a license, the virus definitions are free for the life of that version. As long as you don't need a new version, then you can download the definitions for ever and ever. 8)

I received a copy of the PocketPC software about a month and a half ago when I got my version 7 upgrade CD. I did have it installed and ran a couple scans. It seems like a nice little product, but I'm just not sold on pocket viri yet. ;)

It's nice to see some companies giving stuff away. :way to go:

[Jerry Raia]

I downloaded it, seems great to me. Does anyone know if its active in the background?

[Heavy Eddie]

I'm not to worried about infection on a mobile device yet... but it would be cool to be able to clean an infected file that maybe got copied to a memory card. (Although, how often will this actually happen?)

[dlangton]

I downloaded it, seems great to me. Does anyone know if its active in the background?


It depends on the options you've selected. There are two check boxes for real time monitoring:

Monitor File updates
Scan storage cards on insert

[Pete Teoh]

Does this work on WM2003 devices?

[JonnoB]

Does this work on WM2003 devices?

Seems to so far...... (221x)

[sponge]

I should hope that a program that displays an animated bitmap works on 2K3 devices :P

[seidler]

Sorry for my ignorance, but - is there any virus known for the PocketPC? 8O

Thanks for clarification ..

Stefan

[mr_Ray]

Although AV products for PPCs seem a little useless at the moment - they are - I'm glad that they're working on them anyway.

What's worse - having a few useless products around now, or having to wait 6 months for them to develop one when the real stuff eventually comes along? At worse it's something we'll never need, at best it'll just be getting developed until the time we need it.

PPCs to me actually seem to be getting more and more likely to be hit. Sure a year or two ago it wasn't a dangerous thing - PPCs would only talk to each other to swap business cards via IR and would sync calendar/contacts/etc with your PC. With the upcoming trend of everty PPC having wireless connectivity, it seems to be becoming a bigger and bigger target.

Imagine if you will a security vulnerability exploited in the bluetooth code. Walk within 20 metres of someone with the virus - bam, you've got it too. While you're walking into the office it connects to your bluetooth phone and sends itself to all your contacts. When you get there you turn on your wifi and every connected PPC in the company is infected.

That's the way PC virii are heading - witness the events of a few weeks ago. With enough connected PPC devices, people will consider targetting them.

So what do we nned in order for this to happen?
More PPCs - yup, sales seem good.
More connectivity on PPCs - well how many new PPCs don't have at least bluetooth or wifi?
Easier networking - isn't this one of WM2003's selling points, and the direction things have to go in to get more consumer buy-in anyway?

The only things that we're waiting for are:

A nice secuirty hole or two to exploit - hey, it's MS, there's bound to be one somewhere.
Someone to write the code - it'll happen if the target's juicy enough for them.

Of course this might be next year, it might be in 10 years. Until then don't bother calling me until you've spotted the first virus. :)

[Eitel]

Now, this is something I thought I will never see on my PPC.


http://redmojo.com/images/ppc.gif