iVirusScan from McAfee is real!

iVirusScanAccording to tuaw.com, they recieved info about the McAfee Virus Program being true. The director of worldwide PR for McAfee says:

The application you blogged about is indeed a genuine McAfee project. We are always working on new platforms including the popular ones. In this particular case we were running a test to validate some recently developed technology. We happen to be first to test AV technology for iPhone. We’re happy that iPhone users are already getting excited about it, as evidenced by your blog and the thousands of people who are trying out the application. Still, we are not ready to announce a new product, our development work is in the early stages.

We hope you can understand why we were so concerned about this in the beginning. I still stand by my previous statement:

McAfee would not go around Apple and beta test a virus scan program for the iPhone through a hacker community. That would mean they support jailbreaking your iPhone (which voids your warranty) to install their app. They would more likely go through Appleā€™s App Store to distribute their product. The only way it would be real is if it was leaked or stolen from them and distributed without their permission.

This was all to be private but was leaked somehow. It was not meant to be released to the public. We did test this on Brooke’s iPhone earlier with no problems. I just installed it before writing this article and the source and install went fine. Of course since this is in beta and not meant for public be aware there still could be problems. Brooke did comment on battery drain earlier but background scanning can be turned off and on via settings. We will be doing a full review tomorrow.

I hope everyone understands we were cautious and aggressive about this at first in order to keep your iPhones safe. Thanks to those who were sending us correct info, we just had to verify it from McAfee first.


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Comments

  1. The most likely scenario that we actually need an anti-virus software on the iPhone is after we jailbreaked it in the first place (because by doing so you are willing to install untrusted 3rd party softwares! Or in no sense should they distribute their software by mean of App Store because Apple will be given the authority to examine every single line of any app’s codes they would help to distribute.

  2. this is what i figured, because I had no problems with this, and i’m not sure what this deleting of plist files is on other’s devices.

  3. Doug,

    I’m kind of lost. You say that your are cautious and agressive about this application. but you do install all applications being released.
    How do you know that none of the applications that are being released, aren’t calling home with personal information ?

    I think that our job is to just provide users with all information that comes out. Judging is up to the users themselves.

    Just my 2cents

  4. alex_dlc says

    i read that they talked to mcafee andw they sayd it was fake, also that it messed up their iphones

  5. SeijinZero says

    real or not, if it’s messing people up, that’s all I need to know. And BTW, since when do we need virus protection on our phones now? Especially non- jailbroken iphones You can’t be serious, mcafee. That’s just exploiting our insecurities.

  6. I don’t know. It still trikes me as suspicious that they are developing for 1.x firmwares.

    Furthermore, the kind of permissions and access this would require bar I’d from running on 2.x firmwares.

    I still don’t buy it.

  7. How can Mcafee work on Hacked platforms ? I mean if its on Installer, it has to be a jailbroken phone which is illegal ! So Mcafee cant release an app untill they make it with the Official SDK and release it via AppStore !!

    Anyways, where do I het this app ? Source ?

  8. the macafee program doesnt make sense in apple’s plans

    who want an antivirus program that doesnt work in the background?

  9. The McAfee program does not make sense, if noone will develop applications using the Free Toolchain. Since the Apple SDK is A LOT restricted in functionalities, it is very likely that to have some nice utilities that won’t be allowed by the Apple model, users will end up using the Installer.app (or Cydia, or whatever else and better will come out) more than the Apple/iTunes jail/sandbox vector.
    Time will tell, and we don’t even have to wait too much time for it to be known.

  10. This is a Must!
    Cause viruses can come from site you visit via Safari, not just from apps.

    • As long as you don’t jailbreak your iPhone you won’t be worrying about viruses. If viruses can infiltrate your iPhone and make itself a daemon, then jailbreaking the iPhone utilising safari is also viable, which is so far not possible (unless you are using an old version of firmware)…

  11. i was wondering if someone can make a program that iphone could be used as a scale… . to put stuff on screen and tell u how much the thing weights…

    like if u were to weight out something in oz’s or grams
    and just place it on the screen..

  12. I need ivirusscan

  13. Hi