SECURITY IN A MOBILE WORLD! ---- PART IV

PocketPC’s are only Comparatively Safe: Security on the PocketPC platform is a great deal different than your laptop. Security issues considered minor on the Laptop platform like Physical Access, Application/Data Access, and Theft/Loss Mitigation are more substantial on the PocketPC platform, because the PocketPC is infinitely easier to steal than a laptop. And larger issues on the Laptop like Firewalls, AntiVirus, and AntiSpyware become less predominant because the PocketPC platform offers less of a potential target for hackers. Because there is currently more interest in cracking Windows PC data and applications, the PocketPC platform is relatively safe, but that will change soon enough.

Being Popular only makes you a bigger target: However, just because you are safer with a PocketPC doesn’t mean you should rest on your laurels. The current updates (or leaps) in technology will make future versions of PocketPCs much more powerful, with their increased storage capacities, faster processors, convergence of technologies, and the imminent arrival of WM5 on the not-so-distant horizon, so then will the desire of the Black-hatters to hack the PocketPC platform only grow bigger (and faster) in direct relation to the popularity of the upcoming PocketPC platforms. as each subsequent generation of PocketPC is produced with bigger storage and faster processors. This validates the need to obtain additional Security Applications for future PocketPC releases, because you need to stay “ahead of the curve”. Security on the PocketPC is going to become more complicated in the near future, and not just for the newer units. Older units will also be susceptible.

Are Security Applications really necessary? Some people tend to argue against the need of such Security applications, saying that the companies that make them are taking advantage of a user’s fear of being compromised. This is true to a large degree, in that the fear of being compromised is what drives users to purchase their products. However, this fear is real and legitimate concern, so what it actually boils down to this:
Which is more important to you?
- Paying to maintain your privacy and security (and most likely never suffering a security breach as a result). If this concern is valid to you, buying these products can be considered the same as buying mini insurance policies against security breaches.
- Not paying to maintain your privacy and security (and possibly suffer a loss of personal data or privacy as a result). If you deem this issue to not be worthy of your concern, you can probably continue onward without any of these applications and still have an uneventful life. But if your personal data or security is compromised in the future, you have only yourself to blame.