The A to Z of wireless

A is for Antivirus

With more and more mobile devices accessing the internet, concerns are being raised about the possible impact of viruses being developed for mobile phones. There are thought to be around 14 core viruses that can affect mobiles and Finnish anti-virus developer F-secure says it has identified 200 virus variants that target smart phones.

The two common viruses that can potentially infect mobile devices are Skulls and Commwarrior, but neither is widespread and they aren't especially harmful. However, there is a fear that the open nature of mobile technologies such as Bluetooth could make phones susceptible if more serious viruses start to appear.

The list from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more on each of the entries in the list.

A is for Antivirus
B is for Bluetooth
C is for The Cloud
D is for dotMobi
E is for Email
F is for FMC
G is for GPS
H is for HSDPA
I is for i-mode
J is for Japan Air
K is for Korea
L is for LBS
M is for M2M
N is for NFC
O is for Operating systems
P is for Pubs
Q is for QoS
R is for Roaming
S is for Satellite
T is for TV
U is for UMTS
V is for Virgin
W is for WiMax
X is for XDA
Y is for Yucca
Z is for Zigbee

At the moment this isn't a massive problem, with F-secure producing antivirus software for mobile devices. WDSGlobal, a company that handles support calls for several networks, has claimed that out of 275,000 calls, only 10 were related to mobile viruses.

Despite the relatively low frequency of these viruses, Orange recently signed up to protect their customers' mobile devices using F-secure software. Orange cited concerns about the threat of mobile malware which it believes will become more common over the next few years. The company claimed to have encountered 2,100 viruses in its network during May.