Smartphone attacks increase
p2pnet.net News:- Malware attacks against mobile phones are mounting, warns Finnish security firm F-Secure.
“The security challenges in the mobile environment are similar to the problems we have encountered in the PC world,” it says. “Open platforms are becoming popular in smartphones, for example the Symbian operating system is used in more than 20 million mobile phones at the moment.”
F-Secure’s web site has a timeline of events:
- In spring 2004, a trojanized game called Mosquitos was found. It secretly sent messages to expensive toll numbers, creating invisible costs for the user.
- June 15th: Cabir worm was found. Cabir is a worm that replicates over-the-air using bluetooth connections.
- June 16th: Cabir.B is found. This new variant had minor differences compared to the original.
- During the autumn, Cabir.B started spreading in the wild. It has been detected in several countries since, including China, India, Turkey, Philippines and Finland. It continues spreading today, travelling from one country to another as people with infected phones travel.
- November 19th: Skulls.A trojan is found. It replaces icons on the phone with skull images, making the phone almost useless.
- November 29th: Skulls.B is found
- December 9th: Cabir.C is found
- December 9th: Cabir.D is found
- December 9th: Cabir.E is found
- December 21st: Skulls.C is found
- December 21st: Cabir.F is found
- December 21st: Cabir.G is found
F-Secure says it believes new kinds of attacks such as trojan horses in games, screensavers and other applications, are on the way, “resulting in false billing, unwanted disclosure of stored information, and deleted or stolen user data.”
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See:-
timeline – The malware attack against mobile phones is mounting, F-Secure, December 22, 2004
December 23rd, 2004 at 4:57 pm
The B*****ds, is no secure anymore…
December 23rd, 2004 at 7:24 pm
Sad that smartphone manufacturers and software suppliers seem destined to repeat all the same mistakes and learn nothing from more general purpose computing. Where is the equivalent of Windows Update and up2date? Where is the focus on safe comuting techniques?
And as embedded code start to turn up in more and more connected devices, smartphones are a leading indicator of a much more general problem.
December 25th, 2004 at 1:07 am
Mmmmm….wonder why the ‘hackers’ aren’t going after Linux??
Maybe it’s ’cause no-one would care? CNN wouldn’t report it, and Norton wouldn’t even mention it.