John in marketing went out on Saturday and spent his bonus on a shiny new handheld computer. He has spent the weekend playing with it, and now he’s trying to install the handeld’s back-up software on his work PC. Should his IT manager stop him? Company policies range from laissez faire to completely banning outside devices, for fear of opening the network to the risk of attack. With virus companies offering firewalls and virus scanners for PDAs (personal digital assistants), do companies need to worry or is it all hype to sell more security software? Users, analysts and even security companies agree that the threat of PDA viruses is low to nonexistent right now. First, the devices themselves aren’t yet sophisticated enough to execute very complicated code, including malicious code. Second, at the moment, there isn’t a large enough number in use to make it worth a hacker’s effort. But perhaps this is the time when companies should start looking at how they will manage when PDA viruses do, inevitably, start to appear. Full Story
About OODA Analyst
OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.