Tablets and computer viruses.

Hello.

My sister recently purchased an Amazon Fire tablet for my nephew as a birthday gift. She asked me if it would be as vulnerable to computer viruses as a regular PC.

I have never really used a tablet so I couldn't give her a good answer, I told her to "Google it".

Then I thought if anyone would know the people on ATS would have an answer. Does anyone have knowledge they would like to share?

Thanks.

originally posted by: jafo1973
She asked me if it would be as vulnerable to computer viruses as a regular PC.

No.

Not viruses made for computers. Though, they certainly can pick up viruses formatted differently for the tablets, same as with smart phone viruses.

That is an easy one to answer, but not to a simple solution, as every electronic device seems to have problems.

But here goes: Listing of Security Problems with Amazon Fire OS (updated most frequently)

Tablets have their specially designed viruses and bugs. Since you bought a new one it not been exposed too easily unless you have been to malicious sites.

Definitely there, and growing for the cellphone market, but still well below what you would see for a Microsoft based computer.

For the Amazon Fire tablets, there is an encryption option to help protect your data. Could be out of date info, but I think it's still correct: go to settings > security and privacy > encryption > encrypt tablet.

Will take a while, will slow down tablet slightly, but if there is important or sensitive info on the tablet, probably worth it!