Is my cellphone, attached to my pc, more prone to viruses?
My cellphone is attached to my home pc by way of the internet. I can receive and send messages on my cellphone, through my home computer. This is a great conveniece, while on the go. Question: because of this attachment, are viruses more likely to attack not only my personal computer, but also my cellphone? Are there any known cases available to read and research?
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6 Answers
What cell phone are you using?
I don’t know of any actual case studies of attacks on cell phones used in this way.
In fact, in order to receive a useful answer to this question you should probably provide more data:
As @Vortico asked; what cell phone? What sort of computer? (Laptop, desktop, if possible the vendors of various components like: Intel motherboard? nVidia graphics card? etc.) What Operating System runs on the computer (Wndows7, Windows Vista, WinXP, Gnu/Linux, Gnu/HURD, MacOSX, BeOS, Haiku, Plan9, minix, what?) what OS runs on the phone (iOS, Android, MeeGo, Debian armel, HP WebOS, Maemo, or whatever) and what sort of connection exists between the two (point-to-point USB, direct Ethernet connection, Ethernet connection over wireless router, Ethernet over bridge, Ethernet over hub, null-modem, Bluetooth, IRDA, ham radio?)
More importantly, which is “upstream” to the Internet- your computer or your cell phone? By which I mean: Does your computer have internet access which is shared from that computer to the cell phone, or does the cell phone have internet access which is shared from the phone to the computer?
As Mobile devices get (no pun intended) smarter, there is a larger need to protect them.
I just rolled out a Mobile Security Product to all Corporate mobile devices to ensure better control and protection.
There are plenty of cell based viruses and have been around for longer than you think.
How Cell-phone Viruses Work
CNET Article
Research
As more critical personal and corporate data is accessible via mobile devices, we will see it only rise in being hit by Malware, etc….
This is theoretically possible, but I suspect the actual risk is somewhere between very-low and zero. If you were a head of state, or CEO of a multibillion dollar corporation who had info that would be worth someone writing a custom virus targeted just on you and your particular setup, then I would be more concerned; otherwise, keep your ears out for any major new cellphone attacks and enjoy the convenience of linking the two in the meantime.
Note: this dosen’t mean that your phone is immune from malware, but that the particular mechanism of linking the two machines probably represents a low risk, relative to other avenues of attack on certain platforms.
I am using a Nokia 6133. It’s an older phone, but it has all the gadgets I need. My pc is a Dell. My cellphone service is T-Mobile.
I ask this question, since I have been receiving photos from someone else’s family album.
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