Cabir mobile virus on the loose
p2pnet.net News:- The first in-the-wild sighting of the Cabir mobile virus has been made in the US.
The ‘sighting’ was in California, says F-Secure..
But, “This is not going to be the end of the world,” says research director Mikko Hypponen.
“The common Cabir variants have been proved to be very slow in spreading in-the-wild.
“Also, Symbian-based phones probably aren’t as common in USA as elsewhere yet (then again, Symbian has over 80% global market share in the operating systems of new phone shipments).”
The company says countries which have become unwilling hosts to Cabir include the Philippines; Singapore; UAE; China; India; Finland; Vietnam; Turkey; Russia; the UK; and, the USA, says F-Secure, which recently identified two Cabir variants affecting Symbian Series 60 phones.
Its timeline of events taking in e-parasites with a taste for mobiles goes like this:
- 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
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See:-
end of the world – Cabir found in-the-wild in USA, F-Secure, February 14, 2005
recently identified – F-Secure finds 2 Cabir variants, p2pnet, December 27, 2005
