Symbian Mobile Virus Warning

[3GScottishUser]

From The Register (04/04/2005):

Text me and I'll reply with a virus

Virus writers have created a third mobile phone virus capable of replicating via MMS messages. The Mabir worm, which targets Symbian Series 60 phones, is not spreading, but its ability to propagate via Multimedia Messaging Service messages (MMS) gives cause for concern.

Mabir is essentially a variant of the Cabir worm, which spreads only over Bluetooth, with added MMS functionality. An analysis of the worm by anti-virus firm F-Secure suggests that Mabir-A is based on the same source code as Cabir and is likely the product of the same coder.

Mabir-A spreads using Bluetooth using the same routine as early variants of Cabir. When Mabir-A activates it will search for the first Bluetooth phone it finds, and start sending copies of itself to that phone.

The MMS spreading function of Mabir-A uses a new social engineering technique. Instead of just reading all phone numbers from the local address book (as with an earlier mobile virus called A virus called Commwarrior-A), Mabir-A replies an infected MMS message in reply to any SMS or MMS messages sent to an infected phone.

MMS messages are text messages that include an image, audio or video. They are sent from one phone to another or via email.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...r_mobile_worm/

[Ben]

And so it goes on - mobile worms and viruses continue to pose a threat to Symbian smartphones. Swift action is needed by Symbian or they'll soon find their main rival, Windows Mobile, gains a lot more credibility than it otherwise should! The potential cost of contracting one of these worms, even though you have to be 'off the ball' to allow one to install, is enormous when you think of how much MMS messages actually cost.

At the end of the day there's only a limited amount of things that can be done to stop such worms. It might be useful to have a Symbian application that can send/receive MMS messages automatically in some circumstances, but somewhere along the line relevant protection and/or authentication needs to be introduced so users know exactly whan an application they are installing will do.

Perhaps when every Symbian applications prompts to be installed, Symbian should probe the program and throw up a list of services it will be able to access. Better, perhaps, perhaps the first time any Symbian application tries to affect an external process Symbian should ask if you want to allow it or not.

[3GScottishUser]

Checked the Symbian site and it lists the following as Series 60 phones:

Nokia 3230, 3650, 3660, 3620, 6630, 6670, 6260, 7610, 7650, N-Gage, N-Gage QD,

Sendo X, X2

Panasonic X700

Siemens SX-1

Samsung SGH-D710