antivirus for cell phones

[old goat]

Norton says I now have antivirus protection available for our devices, no additional cost. We don't keep any sensitive documents on our devices (an iphone, an android, and an ipad) but the phones have access to our email, of course. The devices are PIN protected. Is the antivirus a good idea, any reason not to? I have installed on one phone--battery drain doesn't seem bad. Help an old man out.

[RShea]

Are you sure there is Antivirus software for your Apple iPhone devices? Most of the apps for "Security" on the Iphone are the find my lost phone type of stuff. Here is an article specifically on AV for iPhones and IOS. https://www.howtogeek.com/352613/wha...r-iphone-none/

There are a number of mobile management (including remote wiping of the device if lost or stolen) packages out there for Apple. Sophos, Eset and a few other well known reputations out there for Android phones. Norton years ago was a good antivirus solution for computers and then it really got to be quite a bad reputation (same for McAfee) on the consumer level.

Some think that Android is less secure and needs Antivirus. I've loaded a scanner or 2 to my Android phones over the years to do a 1 time scan if I suspect something like an email opened that could have an infected attachment. But the not installed all the time.

Better option in my opinion is a good junk mail filter on the email providers side, or cloud based scanning of messages for Spam and Viruses or Phishing messages before they even get delivered to any of your inboxes on any device you use for email. (Office 365 has Outlook Protection and a paid advanced threat protection app available as an example. But there are many cloud based 3rd party scanners and filtering companies out there that also offer to scan and filter messages then forward on to your inbox on the mail server.

[XXX-er]

Covid-19 ?

[galibier_numero_un]

Norton flags malicious apps.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Norton IS the virus

[stuckathuntermtn]

Can't phones by default only install and run stuff from their respective app stores and that's why we haven't seen the same ad carried infections and other malicious script injections in phones as in PC's? That and maybe the user environment is more restricted. No one is an admin.
There is very granular permission control for apps on Android, too. No idea about iOS.

[SHarmon]

Avast Mobile Security. Gives you handy extras like a firewall and remote wipe

[Roofgangster]

I use Nortom. It's rather good and intuitively understandable. I even gounf some viruses on my android with norton.

[RShea]

Can't phones by default only install and run stuff from their respective app stores and that's why we haven't seen the same ad carried infections and other malicious script injections in phones as in PC's? That and maybe the user environment is more restricted. No one is an admin.
There is very granular permission control for apps on Android, too. No idea about iOS.

iOS is pretty strict about what can be done. Apple controls the store for the apps (but apps with either bad privacy or worst can slip through and Apple occasionally announces they are pulling some apps from their store.) Apple also does not allow the boot loader or jailbreak or rooting of their phones, so none of the side loading can be done.

Google also has an approval process for their store apps. But Android has 2 things that can be done on some brands and models- There are rooting procedures that then can allow apps to be loaded or built in apps uninstalled that typically would be locked. There also is a way to load apps from other sources other than the official Google Play Store. Then apps from say Amazon's Android App Store or other non-Google Play sources can be loaded on some of the Android Phones.

[old goat]

Besides malware getting in through bad apps, can't it get in through email and non-app web browsing?

[hutash]

I don't think Norton worse against Corona viruses. Perhaps if you dip your phone in bleach?

[RShea]

Besides malware getting in through bad apps, can't it get in through email and non-app web browsing?

It can at least for email -especially if there is an attachment of some sort with the email that was opened on the device, yes. The question on email is whom hosts the email and are they doing any front end cloud scanning and filtering of the messages?

Browsing could have a script or infection server side also that tries to infect the device and spread that way. It also depends a bit on which browser you are using and how they work. It is rarer though and many run their Android phones for years without Antivirus software.