I did a small piece on computer security, but I think it might not be directed enough towards the presentation I had that day, so here’s a more specific response to the article I covered in my presentation for the F.A.L.O section.

The title of that article was “Googler speaks of mobile security, says anti-virus companies are playing with your fears“

The article was typical re-hash/re-post/pseudo-blogging  at its best as the writer of the article makes no conclusions, and simply points to what other people are saying, and asks a rhetorical question at the end of the article. He might as well have just posted a link to the original piece which the article is based on which can be found here.

Basically, this “googler” Chris DiBona makes the argument that we should leave all security issues for Android in the hands of the Android development team, and that more likely than not you’ll never run into any security issues.

No.

If you are targeted, you can and will be hacked unless you take the appropriate measure to try to defend yourself at a minimum. This is a simple fact of life when it comes to computers that are networked. Don’t trust me? Ask Microsoft why they haven’t stopped patching Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and all of their other products. Why do they need patches and updates? Why does Android need patches and updates? Surprise, there are security issues that arise all the time, because of black hat/white hat hackers, and this trend will likely not end until there’s some other medium of computing that provides better security (it’s a long shot, but quantum computing might bring us there one day)

If that last paragraph got your attention, I recommend reading up on my other blog post entitled “ESET” and why it’s a pretty darn good piece of software (for malware protection)

Conclusion: I don’t recommend trusting the guy from the company that’s selling you something; get a second opinion when it comes to security.