It is common knowledge that you must protect your computer from viruses, but there is another vulnerable piece of technology that we are rarely without, Our smart phones.
Mike Katchebaw is a Computer Science Professor at Western University he explains how smart phone viruses differ from computer viruses.
“It is a little trickier because the platforms are a little better contained. So usually the way a smart phone work when you’re running an application on it, it is sandboxed away from everything else. So it has very limited ability to do anything on the device. There are ways out of those sandboxes through various different means”.
According to Mike, your smart phone is most vulnerable once you have removed protections that the manufacturer has placed on your device. For example, a jail broken phone is more vulnerable than a non-jail broken phone.
Though smart phone viruses are not very common in North American yet, it is important to be cautious. Similarly to protecting your computer, there is anti-virus software available for most smart phones. For more information on how to protect your smart phone visit the Canadian Government’s Cyber Safety site.
