You must have missed the news articles last month then. Google pulled two malicious apps from the Android Market, and remotely uninstalled them from users phones.
-Not a virus
This statement is false. There absolutely has been malicious software in the wild for Windows Mobile.
-No, it's not. I said >viable<. There have been a few (very few) items, none have done significant damage or propagated freely.
You've hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how a trojan works. The user is tricked into installing it. Just because it's a trojan and not a virus doesn't make it any less of a threat. And yes, AV software would help in this instance, in the same way AV software on your desktop would would catch a trojan when you downloaded it and tried to install it... As long as there was a signature for it.
- The recent wallpaper exploit wasn't a true trojan and probably wouldn't be caught effectively by a av program. Just like how most people don't read the permissions they're giving when installing an app, they would quickly ignore any malware program that questioned the same. This type of threat is best handled server side, not device side.
There is some really interesting work being done in this space on the mobile side of things. Mobile security software doesn't have to work in the same way that desktop security software does (and shouldn't, given the limited resources on the device).
This very day? You're probably right. I don't run an AV app on my phone either because I don't quite feel it's necessary... yet... but... I also don't download many apps to my phone.
I do think that we are at the beginning of a paradigm shift in computing. It is just barely starting now, but In the next 12 to 24 months, we are going to see a huge move from desktop/laptop computing to smaller devices running iOS, Android, and WebOS.
One big telling sign... Apple just release new macs, and they didn't even bother to put them on the front page of their web site. Apple is making a huge bet that that consumers are going to move away from traditional computing devices in favor of much smaller tablets and phones.
HP bought palm. They see the writing on the wall as well.
The concept of securing mobile devices is catching hold in the corporate world, with people who have a lot to lose. It's only a matter of time before it starts to gain some mind share with consumers as well.
-SF