Melissa J. Perenson, Nick Mediati

Smartphone malware attacks get a lot of attention, but you’re much more likely to lose your device than you are to contract a smartphone virus infection. And you’re just as vulnerable to other problems--such as phishing and spam--on a phone as you are on a PC. No need to panic, however: The following Android and iPhone security tools will help to protect your phone from all kinds of threats.

Android Apps

MyBackup Pro: The Android OS has built-in backup and restore functionality, but handset makers sometimes don’t enable this feature on their phone models. And Android’s basic recovery program won’t bring back your call logs, text messages, or photos if you lose them.

Are Android tablets poised to fall in price, again? That’s what it sounds like based on comments by Nvidia vice president Rob Csonger. In a call with investors, Csonger discussed the existence of a reference design for a $199 Android tablet running the company’s Tegra 3 processor. What’s noteworthy here is that, in the five months since Nvidia took the stage at its CES 2012 press conference, the company has lowered the target price of its inexpensive tablet platform from $249 to $199.

That 20 percent price decrease reflects the ongoing price pressures in the non-Apple tablet market, where the Amazon Kindle Fire dominates among 7-inch models, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 dropped in price by 38 percent compared with last fall’s model. However, neither of those models are performance barn burners, and neither features a quad-core processor with the potential power of Nvidia’s Tegra 3 platform.

Huawei's MediaPad 10 tabletHuawei brought its MediaPad 10 tablet to CTIA 2012. The tablet was first introduced at Mobile World Congress in February, as was the Ascend line of smartphones.

Neither has changed much since then, and both remain in limbo in terms of U.S. availability, but we did catch a few new changes in the tablet's software and hardware.

AT&T is making an ambitious jump into home security and automation with AT&T Digital Life, a service that will run on its wireless infrastructure. The company announced the venture here at the CTIA trade show at an offsite event in the New Orleans' Garden District. Trials of the new offering begin this summer in Atlanta and Dallas.

Home automation is a departure from AT&T's core products and services, but the Digital Life service, says Ainsley M. Sadio, assistant vice president for AT&T Digital Life, is a complement to the company's existing service offerings.

CTIA 2012 in New Orleans starts May 8.CTIA 2012 kicks off next week in the Big Easy, and PCWorld will be at the show to bring you all the latest mobile news from New Orleans.

Unlike Mobile World Congress (MWC) or even the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), CTIA is more of a U.S.-focused gathering for the wireless industry. Here's what we know so far.

It appears that $400 or less marks the new sweet spot for 10-inch-class tablets. First Apple reduced its iPad 2 to that price, and now we have a pair of Android tablets, the Acer Iconia Tab A200 and the Asus Transformer Pad TF300, coming in at $350 and $380, respectively. If you have four C-bills and want a 10-inch tablet, which of these represents the best deal? The answer may surprise you.

Or maybe not. We’ve already established that, for some, an Apple iPad 2 may be enough tablet and represent the better buy over the newer third-generation iPad. But now we have two new Android models, each from large PC manufacturers, and each competing for the same market that Apple’s targeting with its iPad 2.

[Photo: Robert W. Darabos on Kickstarter]Discovered in 1974, the Terracotta Army is a vast collection of sculptures that depicts an army that dates back to the 3rd century B.C. It's mind-blowing, and it serves as the inspiration for a recent Kickstarter project.

Artist Robert W. Darabos wants to re-create this wonder of the ancient world, expect using sculptures of Lego minifigures. According to Robert's Kickstarter page, the project started a something of a joke after he made six Lego minifigure sculptures out of clay. A student of his suggested making an "army" of clay minifigures, and after mulling it over for a while, Robert decided to go ahead with the project.

Microsoft Security Essentials 2.1, the fifth-place finisher in PCWorld's 2012 free antivirus roundup, is something of a mixed bag. I like its interface, and it is reasonably good at cleaning up infections, but it falters at stopping new malware, and it plods through its chores.

Security Essentials' user interface is particularly straightforward--perfect if you don't want to waste time messing around with your antivirus software.

PC Tools AntiVirus Free 2012 has its strong points, but it was the worst of the products tested in our April 2012 antivirus roundup when it came to blocking new malware. In our real-world blocking tests, PC Tools managed to stop only 57.1 percent of malware samples, placing it well behind its competition in this roundup.

On the plus side, PC Tools detected 99.96 percent of known malware from the past four months. It is also one of the best free antivirus programs at disinfecting a PC. It detected all infections on our test system, and it successfully disabled 93 percent of the infections. It removed all traces of malware in 73 percent of the cases.

Comodo Internet Security Premium 5.9 has an accessible interface, and it comes with a firewall. It's the only freebie we tested in our April 2012 free antivirus roundup that has a firewall, but in both malware blocking and cleanup, it ranks be­­hind other free antivirus products we tested. Since this testing was completed, Comodo has released version 5.10, which has not yet been tested.

Comodo's performance in our real-world tests was acceptable: It blocked 78.6 percent of new malware, slightly above average compared with other free antivirus programs. It partly blocked an additional 21.4 percent of attacks. But Comodo protected poorly against well-known malware. It detected 98.2 percent of zoo samples. Though that may sound like a good score, only two of the nine products we tested performed worse.

Malwarebytes Antimalware Free 1.61 is a supplemental free product that can help bolster your existing security software. The makers of Malwarebytes Antimalware pitch it as a tool for detecting and removing brand-new "zero-day" malware, and it uses a number of different technologies to accomplish this task.

The software did perform decently compared with other freebies in PCWorld's 2012 free antivirus roundup when it came to stopping new malware. In our real-world tests, Malwarebytes fully blocked 78.6 percent of samples--slightly better than average--and partially blocked an additional 14.3 percent. It's also reasonably fast: It had the lightest overall impact on system performance of any free antivirus product we tested.