The Security Mentor

In 1997, if you had a computer with as much processor speed and memory as a modern smart phone, it would have been a desktop computer and a fairly high end one at that.

The more complicated something is, the more ways there are to attack it. You can protect a desktop computer by unplugging it from the network, but the whole point of a mobile phone is to live on a network.

So how dangerous are things right now?

Not very.

The devastating self-spreading infections we saw on desktop machines haven't happened yet. What's been happening, and only at a really small scale, are so-called viruses that you have to install yourself. You get a message, it has an attachment, the attachment is a file that installs software (.SIS on phones like the Nokia), and well of course bad things can happen. Don't install software unless you have some reason to trust the source.

How bad might things get later?

Awful. People outside the US are already using their mobile phones to pay for things. There's money in breaking mobile phone security, lots of it. Attackers today are motivated by money.

For now, the best thing you can do is watch and wait, and avoid the same things you would avoid on your desktop computer.