Mac security expert Intego has released an antivirus application for iPhone and iPad, in light of recent talks that Apple’s mobile OS is safer jailbroken.
Exploiting a vulnerability in the way iOS handles certain PDF fonts, a team of hackers has been able to compromise the software for jailbreaking purposes.
Implicitly, they sounded the alarm on a bug that may be leveraged by others to steal information from a user’s device.
Security experts have gone as far as
to suggest that iPhones are now in need of an antivirus solution.
While
Intego doesn’t mention any of this, we find it interesting that the Austin, Texas-based security vendor is now announcing an VirusBarrier iOS, a malware scanner for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Based on the Mac OS X anti-malware tool VirusBarrier X6, VirusBarrier iOS allows users to scan files attached to e-mail messages for malware that could subsequently affect Macs or Windows PCs.
The security software vendor itself admits that “While there is no known malware for iOS, files can flow through your device into your computers at home and at work, by e-mail, or via remote locations such as MobileMe or Dropbox.”
They advertise VirusBarrier iOS, saying it “lets you easily scan e-mail attachments, other files you have access to on your iOS device, or files on remote locations such as MobileMe and DropBox, web servers or WebDAV shares […] to detect and eradicate all known malware affecting Windows or Macs: viruses, worms, Trojan horses, fake antiviruses, and other types of malware that might otherwise pass through undetected.”
VirusBarrier will be unable to scan files automatically or to run scheduled scans.
This is due to “the secure design of iOS”, Intego said, adding that VirusBarrier iOS is an "on-demand" detection system that lets
you do the scanning.
It supports formats like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, PDFs, HTML files, JavaScript files, Windows executables (.exe), and Windows .dll files.
For $2.99, VirusBarrier iOS includes 12 months of malware definition updates that are “updated regularly,” according to the developers.
VirusBarrier iOS is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and requires iOS 4.0 or later.
Download VirusBarrier iOS
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