I just read about some Georgia Tech researchers working on remote security techniques that carriers could use to help manage attacks on cell phones.

Years ago I used to focus on a similar issue: how mobile malware was something that carriers would eventually be responsible for stopping, and that’s why we wouldn’t really need AV on our phones. That particular prediction was clearly out of date before the threat ever reared its ugly head.

These days our phones are connected nearly as much to WiFi, Bluetooth, and other networks as they are to the carrier’s network. Thus it isn’t hard to see malware that checks to see which network interface is active before sending out any bad packets (DDOS is much more effective over WiFi than EDGE/3G anyway). This could circumvent the carrier, leaving malware to propagate over local networks.

Then again, perhaps we’ll all have super-high-speed carrier-based networks on some 6G technology before phone malware is prevalent, and we’ll be back on carrier networks again for most of our connectivity. In which case, if it’s AT&T, the network won’t be reliable enough for any malware to spread anyway.

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