Mobile viruses – Trend Micro to the rescue
According to Japan's Information Technology Promotion Agency, e-mail was the source of transmission for about 90% of all virus infections in 2000. Now even users of mobile devices are at risk, as the wireless mobile Internet gets increasingly more advanced, and subsequently more susceptible to virus assaults.
Just last month, NTT DoCoMo warned users of its popular Internet-enabled I-mode handsets to be wary of a malicious e-mail that once opened, could potentially cause the user’s mobile phone to crash. Although no major damage was reported, this is not the first time that DoCoMo’s subscribers were exposed to virus attacks.
In August last year, the Japanese police force was bombarded by 400 fake emergency calls as a malicious prank caused hundreds of I-mode users to unwittingly dial the police emergency number during an online quiz.
To battle against mobile virus attacks, NTT Communications Corp (NTT Com) recently announced that it has installed managed virus protection services based on Trend Micro Inc’s InterScan VirusWall, which blocks infected e-mail messages at the Internet gateway, before they have a chance to be executed.
The virus protection services will protect business subscribers by scanning e-mail for viruses and malicious code at the NTT Com Data Center. The Tokyo-based subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. also offers this service to its Arcstar Mobile Mail for Business Mail customers. Arcstar provides mobile connections to company mail servers and comes with virus scanning services.
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