Government, you may have noticed, has been slowly getting itshead around wireless (CIO Government Review, passim). It offers somuch in the way of time-saving, money-saving, people-helping andmaybe even people-saving efficiency that a lot of the earlymisgivings about, say, security have increasingly been set aside.Not that you could necessarily look to your neighborhood Tims for aserving of government-sanctioned Wi-Fi, but there’s been adiscernible easing of the guard. Why not, you could hear just aboutanywhere; if social workers, to cite just one obvious example,could carry their files around in their laptops – meaning theywouldn’t have to hustle back to the office between cases just toget the latest data – well, that was all to the good. And on andon, through PDAs and gizmo-rich cell phones and the rest. Virus?Fuggeddaboutit, Tony.
Well, much of that may have been just a shade too prescient.
Tech security types are apparently worried about a new viruscapable of walking the walk from a PC to all manner of mobiledevices. They’re working up a response, but it has yet to bedeployed. And given the reach of this lovely little bug – it erasesfiles on selected mobiles – that response will be needed soonerrather than later. There’s more; check it out at http://www.itworldcanada.com/Pages/Docbase/ViewArticle.aspx?id=idgml-6b5e3b8b-76cd-40d7&s=7006978.
Efficient? It is to weep. And be scared. Very very scared.