The poll, conducted by ZDNet Australia late last week, found only 21 percent of respondents had taken measures to protect their handheld devices against unwanted intruders. That left 79 percent of PDAs (personal digital assistants) without any protection against hackers.
One local security official, however, is nonplussed by the figure. Product manager for IT security company Symantec, Norm Kohlberger, said PDA owners needed to take protective measures only if their devices were linked - via wireless or cable connection - to PCs. Those users needed to install security products, such as anti-virus software, onto both their PDA and the connected computer, he said.
-If it's just a stand-alone (PDA), it's not going to have anything."
Kohlberger said it was possible for hackers to gain access to information stored on a PDA by cracking a user's password. However, he stressed that passwords should never be the only security measure taken to protect secret information, such as sensitive corporate data.
-If only 21 percent had taken (security) measures on their computers, then I would be definitely concerned. That's actually a pretty good figure (for PDAs)," he said.
For the mean time, Kohlberger said it was unlikely that hackers would target PDAs to spread viruses in Australia because locally the handheld devices -haven't taken off that much".
However, he predicts a surge in PDA popularity in Australia during the next two years, a situation he said could pressure users into taking more interest in security for their handheld devices.
