silicon.com gets to the bottom of mobile phone virus claims, inside F-Secure's Helsinki HQ
Access all areas: F-Secure's headquarters is situated in the dockyard district of Finnish capital Helsinki. silicon.com visited to get the lowdown on how one player in the often secretive antivirus industry operates.All photos: Will Sturgeon
Putting security on the map: Inside the operation centre there are constantly updating screens monitoring security outbreaks as they occur, plotting metrics such as number of interceptions against real time geographical locations to measure the spread. In a world where threats typically spread from east to west and follow the sun this throws up clear patterns.
The technology on display within the operation centre is vital for the fight against the ever more sophisticated systems being used by the criminals.
"Nobody is allowed to take a phone in here," he explains, as the company's techies will be deliberately infecting Nokia handsets while they are in the vault and understandably don't want those infections to leave the strictly controlled laboratory conditions. A few headlines about 'hype' is one thing; starting an outbreak is the kind of PR they could certainly do without.
The writing's on the wall: The door says it all.
As one phone becomes infected via bluetooth, the others chirp into action, one-by-one, announcing that they too have become infected in a viral 'domino effect'.