InfoWorld - Tech Watch: Will antivirus die in the post-PC era?

Greater control of smartphone platforms will reduce the impact of vulnerabilities, but attackers will shift focus to duping users

October 28, 2010
By Robert Lemos

As smartphones and iPad-like devices become the preferred media for accessing information, antivirus companies may find themselves out of a job. End-users, however, will need more education to avoid falling for ploys that dupe them into giving away sensitive information.

That's the conclusion of a recent report by Forrester Research, which predicts that by 2015, half of devices on corporate networks will be post-PC devices, such as RIM's BlackBerry or Apple's iPad. Because such devices are typically sandboxed -- either programmatically, through a managed marketplace, or both -- exploitable vulnerabilities are harder to find and to attack consistently. Attacks that do succeed can be removed remotely by the operating system makers before they propagate too far.

The trend means that attackers will have less-vulnerable products to attack, according to Forrester Research analyst Andrew Jaquith, author of a report titled "Security in the Post-PC Era: Controlled Chaos".

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