Are you sure there are no viruses out there?
Trust me, if there had been a virus out in the wild for the iPhone, you'd hear about it ALL over the news. Plenty of news sources and tech sites out there would have a
blast skewering Apple and the iPhone if there was a virus out there.
To be sure, there have been occasional security holes found where someone
could have written a virus. But those get patched by Apple through firmware updates. In effect, that is your "antivirus" right there. Just keep updating firmware when Apple comes out with a new version and you'll be fine.
This is something I've heard, but I can't imagine why there wouldn't be any out there.
I can think of a couple of reasons. There's the security thing: the constant argument has been that it's just plain easier to write viruses for Windows computers than it is for Macs and cell phones. The security model of OS X is different, and the iPhone's OS is even more restrictive (if not jailbroken).
But there are people who, despite there never really being a significant or lasting virus outbreak for the iPhone or for Macs, will reject the security argument.
Fine. It's
still unlikely you're going to see viruses for the iPhone.
For starters, Viruses and malware these days are driven by economic motives, and no longer for notoriety or just for the sake of being a jerk. Viruses put computers to work spamming, targeting sites for Denial of service attacks from people who have hired hackers to take those sites down, and scamming people out of their passwords, bank account info and identities.
Desktop computers and hacked servers are great for this. There are many more desktops and servers out there (especially ones running Windows) than there are Macs or iPhones. Desktops and servers sit on desks (or in datacenters), fed a constant source of power, and many are left on, unattended, overnight or for days on end, connected to a broadband connection at all times. So, they make very reliable points to do a hacker's bidding.
An iPhone? Not so much. Granted, the current specs of an iPhone 3G actually
compare pretty well to
some basic-level hosted servers for simple websites. But, iPhones are constantly moving, constantly switching between the cell network and WiFi hotspots for data connectivity, and that reduces their reliability and makes their connection speeds erratic. They also run on batteries which can run down, and are subject to be shut off or rebooted at any point by their owners. iPhones also heat up and their batteries are subject to running down much faster if made to do a lot of data intensive work. These are both behaviors that an iPhone owner will notice right away, and either restore their phone's software or take in it in for an exchange, at which point the iPhone ceases to be useful to the hacker who infected it.
So, while writing a successful iPhone virus might make a hacker a very notable individual and gain a lot of press, those phones won't do a very good job of making that hacker any money, which is the prime motivation these days for malware. And once the notoriety is out there, Apple will likely issue a software patch and that'll be the end of that.
I mean, it did freeze up my phone forcing me to do a hard restart. So something must have been going on.
That "something" was probably just a software bug. A phone freezing up once doesn't mean you have a virus.
