Virus on mobile phones.

[chiyau]

seems nothing is safe from viruses these days...

http://www.overclockersclub.com/?read=8731870

[Trash Man]

Was only a mater of time really when you think about it.

[directhex]

only 30 more needed in the next 10 years to draw even with linux!

[r1zeek]

How many viruses does windows get a year then?
I'm guessing 30 in 10 years is very good

[Ferral]

Nice, my Nokia 6600 runs the Symbian OS.

Mind you I never use the bluetooth on it anyhow so not much chance of getting infected.

Granted, viruses are pretty pointless and damned annoying but this is pretty clever.

[Agent]

Im curious on how it actually executes itself on the targets phone: presumably its using an OS exploit of some kind?

[iMc]

hope my 6230 is safe... doesnt seem so my fone doesnt have Symbian.

theres about 30 windows exploits each day aint there

[Swafe]

it works by sending itself via bluetooth, once its on your phone it acts as an SIS (symbian installation software) and tries to install itself - i guess youd have to agree to this, like opening a dodgy attacthment on a email

from then on it attatches itself to the boot reg, like on a pc and comes up whenever the phone is loaded, it then constantly scans on bluetooth for phones coming into range, once one does POW ! it sends it

[SilentDeath]

only 30 more needed in the next 10 years to draw even with linux!

Maybe, but linux has more than its fair share of exploits for hackers. The UI and apps down have such stupid flaws though (usually). Linux would have viruses too, the only reson it doesnt, is that all the users acctually know how to use it (either that or they dunno how to get inet set up on linux..). Making it quite poinltess for virus writers to target linux...

Viruses on phones is very bad. Phones arnt going to be the most easy thing to remove them from...

[directhex]

9/10 of the linux viruses target old versions of the apache web server. linux is a viable target for virii, since most web servers run apache. yet it's still pretty much clean.

[Jimmy Little]

i can see it now...

Norton Anti Virus 2005 (mobile phone edition) = £39.99!! ------ NO!!!

[quackers]

havent these people got anything else better to do than try and infect mobile phones?

[daniel_owen_uk]

Surely it isn't completely harmless? How good for battery life is searching for bluetooth connections constantly?

[Paul Adams]

There was a malformed SMS doing the rounds a few years back which had the ability to crash mobiles (I can't recall if it was just Nokias affected), people will view any new technology as a challenge to bring down or make their mark on.

Ironic that Bluetooth was touted as being so great due to its inherent encryption - now people can securely deliver malware to you

They seriously need to enforce an "enter your password" feature for the installation of anything on a mobile - from what The Register report, all the user has to do is hit "yes" a couple of times to install the virus:

A spokesman for Symbian said: "We take security seriously and are looking at this carefully. But as we understand it at this point this requires the user to have Bluetooth switched on and to say yes to installing an application despite two messages warning that the source of the software is unknown."

From experience, users just love to hit "ok" and "yes please, install this doohicky which I don't have a clue what it does".

[Moonshade]

Hm, where is this taking us? Wondering when our tv's are gonna flip out and get viruses by worms or something

[shiato storm]

well, if you want to avoid viruses etc. just get a mac...
simple.