“The likelihood of getting hit by mobile malware is almost nonexistent,” said an executive at one anti-virus software company.
It has been great using smartphones as de facto computers. You don’t have to buy anti-virus software, or worry that the devices will go haywire every time some Ukrainian crime ring finds a new way to steal data from the cloud.
Which is why you could almost hear a sigh of exasperation from the geekier layers of the mobile industry last month when they heard that hackers had found a way to break into iPhones and remotely control their every aspect.
For users in the United States, however, it appears that the worry-free ride will continue, at least in the near future, and not just because Apple quickly circulated a software patch to plug the vulnerability.
Rather, for their extended peace of mind, users can credit the more tightly controlled — some would say, strangulated — structure of the U.S. cell phone industry. They can also credit some sheer dumb luck.
Such luck is familiar to users of Apple computers. The machines, though loved by those who buy them, have never caught on around the world. That lack of market share was a protection; virus writers can’t be bothered writing malicious code for so few targets.
The iPhone is in the same boat. As strange as it may sound in a country where so many children have these devices that you would think they were given away with McDonald’s Happy Meals, iPhones worldwide barely register on the cell phone radar. Instead, it is Nokia phones, running Symbian software, that reign supreme nearly everywhere except the United States.
So while thousands of law-abiding software developers are diligently building applications to clutter the iPhone or BlackBerry, the black hats taking aim at phones have already found their targets, and they…