Antivirus software has gotten lots of bad press lately. This is largely due to the fact that antivirus software has recently failed to identify and contain huge malware attacks. But is antivirus software necessary for smartphones?
Antivirus Not Necessary on Smartphones?
In fact, it may not be essential. Many people do a great deal of their computing via smartphone now-a-days. People check their email, social media, and surf the web all on their smartphones. On a regular PC they must rely on antivirus software to safeguard them against malware when doing these tasks. However, antivirus software is developed for PCs not smartphones. If antivirus developers don’t build something truly compatible with smartphones they are losing out on a profitable market.
Smartphones vs. PCs
First, modern smartphones operate differently than traditional PCs and laptops. On a smartphone, each app receives its own work environment and is not able to access the data contained in other apps. This is actually a nice security upgrade from the world of PCs and laptops. Malware that is just installed onto a smartphone will be able to do little harm. So there’s the first strike against standard antivirus software: there’s not as much need for it on a smartphone.
One other reason antivirus software is not useful for smartphones is that current antivirus software can’t scan these separate systems. For this reason existing antivirus software does little to combat any malware on smartphones.
Smartphone Antivirus Programs
We have touched on a couple reasons why the antivirus software that is currently available is not very efficient for smartphones. But that doesn’t stop companies from selling it. VirusBarrier is a good example of this. It can be purchased through Apple’s App Store, but it can’t actually scan anything on a smartphone. Users have to send any attachments or documents they want scanned for viruses through VirusBarrier before downloading it from their email client. This can be both frustrating and almost useless for consumers. Until companies start coming out with more complex antivirus software that is able to actually scan apps on smartphones, there is little reason to purchase antivirus software for your smartphone.
Now there are other ways besides the anti-virus software (that is not working for smartphones) that business leaders can ensure that their mobile data is secure.
