Espoo, Finland-based Nokia has been working with Symantec, from Cupertino, California, for just under three years on developing technology to secure mobile devices and has now signed up to ship the Symantec Mobile Security client.
Nokia highlighted in announcing the agreement that it will also enable other companies that have licensed the Series 60 platform to evaluate and test Symantec’s mobile security solutions for their Series 60-based smart phones.
The Mobile Security client has an AutoProtect feature that runs continuously in the background, looking for malicious code in SMS, EMS, MMS, HTTP and emails, plus a built-in firewall, and a LiveUpdate Wireless capability for OTA updates.
This space is becoming ever busier, as a number of other security vendors see opportunities in the mobile market: CipherTrust is currently running trials on RIM’s BlackBerry service, for instance, though that would only be for email and, potentially, IM. The deal with Nokia, which is still the market leader in mobile phones worldwide, is thus a feather in Symntec’s cap, making it harder for its traditional competitors to break in with the Finnish vendor.
