The launch of the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G S is further evidence – if more was needed – that the smartphone category is white hot. While mobile Internet devices (MIDs), netbooks and other types of mobile gear are gaining some traction, it is the smartphone that has captured the most attention from consumers.

This attraction isn’t limited to consumers, of course. Smartphones now are as common for business people. The reality is that the two sectors are converging. Though the smartphones will be configured a bit differently, people from all walks of life – both the CEO of the company and his or her teenage kids – are toting around what in essence are powerful computers.

The rapid growth of smartphones begs an important question: Is current security adequate? The answer, according to a variety of experts, is that the sky is not falling but that serious concerns exist.

It is a question that bloggers, journalists and security vendors have been batting around for some time. The surprise is that most enterprises apparently are not. “A large majority still don’t do a whole lot to secure these devices,” says Khoi Nguyen, the Group Product Manager for Symantec’s Mobile Security Group. “A lot of companies are making the same mistake they made in the 1990s. A lot were not hit by large [PC] viruses. It wasn’t until the big outbreaks like Mydoom and Blaster when companies were hit hard. Only then did they realize they needed a more proactive approach.”

Multiculturalism at Its Finest

Security experts say there are some inherent conditions that keep smartphones safe from the chaos that the worms Nguyen referred to caused. Perhaps the biggest of these differences is that there is no single dominant operating system against which the bad guys can plan. In the PC world, of course, Windows dominates. Experts refer to this as a “monoculture” that has – and still does -- offer an inviting target.

The smartphone world is different. There is the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, iPhone, Palm’s webOS and others. These OSes, experts say, are different enough that the methods of hacking one aren’t necessarily effective against another. Indeed, many of the attacks on smartphones to date aren’t predicated on compromising the underlying code. Instead, they are opportunistic (stealing a device that has no password, for instance) and social engineering attacks in which users are fooled into compromising themselves.

A study done by Lopez Research LLC points out how different the various operating systems are, from the security standpoint. The study looked at the Windows Mobile, iPhone and the BlackBerry platforms. “RIM has a lot of security,” says Founder and Principal Analyst Maribel Lopez. “They started with the premise of including it from the [start]. There is a lot of security in the device. It doesn’t really need a lot of security [added] on top of that.”

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