The tech sector seems especially prone to hype - it’s difficult to imagine that say, the ice cream cone industry suffers from quite as much hyperbole and over-claim.

So to really stand out and become a Super Hyper, you really have your work cut out.

But my nomination is the mobile anti-virus industry, most of whom have spent this year attempting to scare mobile phone owners into rushing out and buy their products - otherwise your phone will turn into a zombie and eat all your relatives and turn your brain to mush, or something.

Actually, all their stories are characterised by wild headlines, only to conclude that actually, one virus has been found “in the wild” on a whole continent. My favourite was this one where the CEO of a software company caught the virus and disinfected it with anti-software, provided by one of his anti-virus partners:

“Somehow, I’m not sure whether I pressed yes or no but it ended up in my handset. When I rebooted my phone, the anti-virus software said I have a virus and asked me whether I want to delete it from my inbox,” [he] said.

This is a man whose company makes and sells software, by the way, not some techno-ignoramous.

It rather came to a head yesterday with Sophos, another anti-virus company finally getting fed up and issuing a “why don’t you just shut up and get back in your box?” kind of statement and describing the latest claims to be “bonkers” (via Silicon).

While it is possible to get mobile viruses, the average user is more likely to get one than I am to ride to work this morning on a dolphin - and I live in land-locked Germany. And even if you do get one, you still have to agree twice to install it, so you have to be unlucky as well as stupid, so you’re probably not long for this world anyway.

One day, mobile viruses will be as big a problem as they are for PCs, but we’re a long way from that right now.