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By Sally Watson, 31 August 2000 00:30

NEWS Palm UK claims anti-virus specialist McAfee is guilty of overreacting to the danger by issuing warnings to users. Security specialist Sophos added that such statements may do more harm than good. A spokeswoman for Palm UK said the company is very concerned about the amount of hype surrounding the Liberty program. "We contacted McAfee as soon as they published their press release," she said. "They were part of the hype and the worry." Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant at Sophos, added: "You're very, very unlikely to come across this particular Trojan horse. It destroys itself as soon as it runs, it doesn't forward itself and it doesn't replicate. But simply talking about it gives it the oxygen of publicity and may encourage others to write more malicious software and perhaps ones that do replicate." However, Jack Clark, product marketing manager at McAfee's parent company, Network Associates, defended his company's stance. He agreed that the Liberty code is not particularly dangerous, but believes people must be made aware of the risks involved with this type of program. "We've just been lucky so far that none [serious palm-based viruses] have been written," he said. "As people become more interested in mobile devices we're going to see many more programs and viruses like this." But Cluley disagreed. He said: "There have been predictions of viruses for Palm and Windows CE for years and years now, and they still haven't emerged. When we begin to see real malware and viruses for these platforms will be the time to apply anti-virus software." Eric Chien, chief researcher at Symantec's AV research centre, admitted anti-virus companies face a double-edged sword. He said Symantec is wary of drawing too much publicity to security threats, but added: "We know the virus writers are looking at new technologies," he said, "and we need to tell our customers."