iPhone anti-virus software: Has the time come?

Anti-virus software has already been made available for various mobile phones. Security firm F-Secure offers protection for phones with Windows Mobile and Symbian and announced the development of such software for Android.

The only mobile phone for whom they can’t offer protection is the iPhone. Actually, nobody can, since to do it they would need assistance from Apple because the device’s software development kit doesn’t allow any programs to run out of its own sandbox. And Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, says that don’t seem interested in helping.

IT Pro reports that even though there has lately been a string of worms that compromise jail-broken iPhones, Apple says that they have no intention of offering security for those, because they don’t condone this practice since it lowers security altogether.

“Apple is doing a good job of keeping everything in its own hands, but the fact of the matter is that if you are an end customer who bought an application not from the app store, something could happen,” says Arnoud de Vaal, director solution management at F-Secure’s mobile unit.