Windows Phone Security

[Auggybendoggy]

I've got a question regarding Windows Phone security.

If I'm right, if a phone becomes useless (bricked) you can use MS's recovery software to reinstall an os. Is that right? If it's right, doesn't that make it like a PC, where if a virus attacks the OS, you can wipe it clean and start over? And if that's right, doesn't that mean it would be hard to hold windows phone's for ransom?

I've read about hackers who take control of a phone and then want money in order to release the phone back to you. If that happened couldn't you just use the recover tool to reinstall the OS?

 

[xandros9]

On Windows Phone you'll need to be able to get the permissions to meddle with the phone's operation which normal apps don't have so those randomware situations aren't likely until someone finds a breakthrough exploit and puts the effort into exploiting it.
Android can have those issues because apps can do so much more, like on desktop Windows. Sometimes it can be used for evil, etc.

But yes, if that hypothetically happened you can just nuke the phone and start fresh. T
he problem though is that its a major inconvenience for many regardless of platform. On Windows Phone, you can lose a significant chunk of game data, etc. The question asked is to spend money to save your files or lose everything?

And we know how most people "back up" data. I've seen too many posts about people losing photos after they explicitly turned off backup, etc.