We knew that the day would come eventually, and here it is – a major maker of smartphones is set to ship its latest and greatest handsets with antivirus software as standard.
Starting with its recently announced Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones, Samsung will begin shipping the McAfee VirusScan Mobile security software as an out of the box solution. It’s unclear whether other Samsung smartphones will follow suit.
Announcing that all Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones will include the software at Mobile World Congress, Intel Security noted that people are using their smartphones for everything from banking to doing their taxes these days. That kind of use is becoming more commonplace and as such means added security is very much needed when you consider the recent uptick in security issues that plague mobile users worldwide.
To that point, a new McAfee Labs report claims that mobile malware increased by 14% during the final quarter of 2014, while over 8% of all systems have reported some sort of infection since the fourth quarter of 2013. It’s figures like this that lend credence to the claim that mobile is now in need of true desktop-like security measures. Companies such as McAfee will be only too pleased to sell their software to the likes of Samsung should the chance arise.
Samsung’s VP of Security R&D Henry Lee confirmed that antivirus software will come with the company’s recently announced smartphones as standard, saying “with the pre-installed security solution, Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge users will have the latest anti-malware technology already built in and activated on their new devices.”
Oh well folks, it was fun while it lasted.
Recently announced at Mobile World Congress, the new Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will go on sale next month.
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