According to this article from Channel Register, Cisco has signed a deal with Trend Micro to embed the Trend Micro Security Suite into Linksys wireless routers. They say it will help protect against viruses on your wireless phones, game consoles, and other devices in addition to your PC’s. To my knowledge there aren’t any reports of viruses spreading through game consoles or wireless connected phones. I do believe this to be unnecessary as most people already have anti-virus on their PCs. Now you have to deal with your files moving through 2 AVs before they are allowed to be used on your PC. Good news is that it doesn’t look to be mandatory as you have to pay for the service annually. Probably around $60. I’m curious to see how this will effect performance of the routers and the overall network. If poorly, then Cisco just lost one customer here.
I absolutely agree…I have not heard of any such viruses being moved through consoles. If this is going to happen, it looks as though I will be moving to another manufacturer of routers. Linksys was a decent company to go with, but it seems they are trying to make the public feel they are doing more. They should probably be doing more in terms of providing a better Wireless-N router…thats where they should start.