Do I need to protect my Smart phone from viruses and intrusions?

Question

I have a Smart phone with Windows Mobile on it.

Am I supposed to get the same types of firewall and anti-virus and spyware capabilities on the phone as I have, say, on my laptop computers? Thank you.

Answer 1

No.

Answer 2

Currently, malware is not a serious problem for the Windows Mobile platform. There are a couple of proof-of-concept viruses which you are never likely to encounter in real life (for instance, one of them asks for permission before infecting anything), one backdoor and one commercial spyware program. So, at least a known-virus scanner would be mostly a waste of memory for Windows Mobile devices. This might change in the future, though. Also, of the various kinds of security programs, a firewall probably makes the most sense - although I wouldn't bother with it, either.