23/3/2001

By Percy Mashaire

Do you still remember the Love Bug, a virus that wrought havoc
throughout the Information Highway and caused millions of dollars in damage? You may or may not remember, but the threat is far from over. ?The number of potential attackers is increasing,? says Matias Impivaara, a wireless security solutions marketing manager at F-Secure, a Finnish security software provider which has branches in Asia, Europe and North America.

The emergence of mobile Internet has brought wireless security concerns to the fore. As companies develop and link their infrastructures to the wireless world, they have become more vulnerable to security threats. ?The more complex [the systems are] the greater the threat,? says Impivaara. Experts maintain that WAP (wireless application protocol) gateways are particularly vulnerable to attacks by viruses, spam (unsolicited messages) and file theft. ?There?s nothing about WAP that enables enterprises to say ?we?re secure,? one expert, Matthew Bevan of Kuji Media Corporation, is quoted saying. He believes that currently it is too expensive for hackers to penetrate the system, but that once the technology gets more applicable and available the temptation to break in will be much greater.

Bevan believes that any data that does not travel through a fixed link is particularly vulnerable. Like Impivaara, he points out that mobile terminals (mobile telephones and other handheld devices) are currently plagued by insecurity. ?A WAP device is really just a mini-computer that anyone can hack into if they can write code small enough,? he is reported saying. According to Impivaara, F-Secure has adopted ?a proactive? approach towards wireless security. Recently the company signed an agreement to provide anti-virus WAP software for Sonera Zed, a subsidiary of the troubled Sonera Corporation. The system monitors HTTP content for viruses and filters out undesirable material from the network traffic. F-Secure has also developed security software for PDAs (personal digital assistants).

Nokia, has in the meantime teamed up with anti-virus software provider, McAfee, to provide security for its Nokia Network Application Platform. The two companies are working together to prevent network viruses originating from laptops from being transmitted to networks.

Gartner, a technology research company, believes that wireless viruses will not be an issue until 2005. That?s not too far off and companies must be ready and prepared to confront the threat.