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First Mobile Phone Virus Discovered

Posted by michael on from the uh-oh dept.

CHaN_316 writes "News.com.au is running an article about the First Mobile Phone Virus Discovered. The virus 'called Cabir - appears to have been developed by an international group specialising in creating viruses which try to show "that no technology is reliable and safe from their attacks"... until now it has had no harmful effect.' Cabir infects the Symbian operating system, and spreads via bluetooth. Great... lets see when we can download the world's first mobile phone anti-virus!"

8 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Nokia 3410 anyone? by The+One+KEA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is why I love my Nokia 3410. It's too simple to get easily hacked.

    Sometimes progress is not an advantage.

    --
    SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
  2. Dupe - No one reads DaddyPants email? by wizzy403 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Eh, why not, I've got some karma to burn...

    I saw this was a dupe when it was "In The Mysterious Future" and emailed daddypants, but it *STILL* got posted. WTF??

  3. I don't get it... by Mz6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This duplicate story gets accepted and posted, while my story about Akamai claiming they got attacked gets rejected... sigh...

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    Hmmm.
    1. Re:I don't get it... by _xeno_ · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Try posting a story about Firefox 0.9 being out today. It has been amazing me all day that nobody has submitted a story yet.

      I did. It got rejected in approximately a half-hour.

      This, on the other hand, is a duplicate of a story that's still on the front page.

      I can forgive the occasional dupe when it's a dupe from three days or more, but... still on the front page?! You've got to be kidding me.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  4. This goes along with a BBC story... by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Apparently, in London, it has become quite fashionable for yuppies to pick up "hot dates" by messaging everyone in the area via Bluetooth. The technique (if spamming can be called a technique) goes under the name of Toothing.


    So... adding a little danger to the thrills of Unprotected Toothing...

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  5. High scores by ThreeDayMonk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Duplicate posts by editor, according to a quick unscientific search on Google (site:slashdot.org dupe "posted by $name"):

    timothy - 114
    michael - 104
    CmdrTaco - 80
    Hemos - 32
    CowboyNeal - 22
    pudge - 12

    --
    If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
  6. Way nicer than they could have been. by ColPanic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Symbian (and MSFT once they get their act together) will almost certainly bring baaaaad virii to the phone networks. I have done a lot of work with Symbian phones, and SMS but I'm not a script kiddie/virus guy, but I'm gonna tell ya how you SHOULD have done this. (give me some props if you actually do it).

    There was(is) a bug on some of the US based sms GSM handsets (may be worse, but I only know the US).... The bug was that sending a malformed binary SMS message to a specific SMSC would hang the queue for the device.... you just wouldn't get any more SMS messages to your phone (until they went in and poked it out by hand)

    You should have exploited the fact that all phones now use SMS, and most have either Symbian or Java... Written a propagation routine that read the addy book, propogated to all of those, and then sent the sender a malformed message of death!

    The user would get a message from his buddy saying "install", and after he did, he;d be fucked before he could stop it/call his friends. MUCH higher propagation levels no?

    Second better plan to the one they did:
    Trogan a java game (since you can get at the code so easy)... put up some services on various operator networks.... like Voda Live, or the 88k different ringtone providers etc... and then just have all infected phones text their premium rate servies all day long.

    Not my game plan personally, but IT IS COMING! all the things I said today can happen TODAY!

    --
    -------- I dig Mobile Phones
  7. Re:It's a PHONE, dammit... by RESPAWN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Then you think that there is no need for a mobile where you can install third-party software?

    As a matter of fact, I do. As the parent poster put it, "It's a PHONE, dammit!" Not all of us want a super-convergence device that allows us to play games, send email, calculate our taxes, photograph our pets, etc. Believe it or not, some of us just want a damn phone and that's it.

    Personally, I expect my phone to be an appliance and I treat it as such. When I look for a phone, I only look at a few things: 1)battery life, 2)size, 3)silent ringer, 4)what kind of signal does it get, and 5)can it do SMS (the only phone luxury I rely on)? I could give a rat's ass whether or not I can install that really cool new puzzle game all my friends are playing, and all of the functions can be provided from the manufacturer. I just want to make and receive calls anywhere, anytime. It's a PHONE .

    --

    If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.