Good locks down phones with McAfee

Good Technology on Monday announced new software and partnerships with security company McAfee. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it will distribute McAfee's flagship product VirusScan Mobile software to smart phones linked through a Good-supported network. It also announced its new Good Mobile Defense software will be available in January 2006 as a stand-alone product and as an extension to its GoodLink and GoodAccess services.

Like their PC counterparts, handheld data is susceptible to and can be the carriers of viruses, worms, dialers, Trojan horses and other malicious code. A 2004 United States PDA Business Usage survey of 230 business professionals conducted by Pepperdine University found half of all respondents did not have any kind of security features on their personal digital assistants other than standard power-on password protection. That approach is despite the fact that 81 percent of respondents said they carry "somewhat valuable" or "extremely valuable" information on their PDA.