It's that time of year we reflect over the last 12 months, and looking at the technological advances we've seen, along with the security issues we've faced, I started to ponder...
"Your toaster has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for any inconvencience caused." As technology advances, electrical appliances get cleverer. There may be a day when the above message, while amusing now, becomes a reality. After all, we have Internet Fridges already.
This vision started when I read a CNN Story today about viruses on mobile phones. Remember the days when "mobiles" were barely able to do more than make a phone call? Since then we have seen phones evolve into devices which also act as PDA's (or the other way around - it is hard to tell sometimes.) As more features are added, they become more like our desktop PC's, and perhaps one of the downsides to sharing information across these platforms is that viruses will spread that way too. Right now the biggest issue is exploitation of the bluetooth capabilities of many phones, however other points of entry into the phone will be created and exploited as time goes on.
So, currently we worry about protecting our computers. Soon we will need to be just as careful with our mobile. And in the future we may be discussing which spyware remover is best for our toaster.