Smartphone viruses can't spread well — yet
There have been no major outbreaks of computer viruses among smartphones because no smartphone operating system is popular enough to let a virus to spread effectively — yet, a new study suggests.
The data also predict that once a single smartphone operating system gains a critical percentage of the entire mobile phone market, viruses could start to pose "a serious threat" to mobile communications, said the study released Thursday in Science Express.
Smartphones "are poised to become the dominant communication device in the near future, raising the possibility of virus breakouts that could overshadow the disruption caused by traditional computer viruses," said the paper by Pu Wang and other researchers at Northwestern University.
