First Mobile Phone Virus Nears 2nd Birthday

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is reporting that the first mobile phone virus is almost 2 years old. F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hyppönen claims that although there are now over 200 mobile phone viruses the problem is unlikely to get as bad as it has with PCs. 'The difference is that PC viruses were first found in 1986 and mobile phone viruses were found in 2004... So we are living in the equivalent of 1988 but in 1988 Microsoft or hardware manufacturers were not doing anything about viruses ... In the mobile phone world, all the mobile phone manufacturers are working on the problem as are the phone operating system manufacturers, like Symbian, Microsoft and Palm. Operators are on top of this.'"

Comments

PC != Windows.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

200 mobile phone viruses the problem is unlikely to get as bad as it has with PCs.

Sorry?

I wasn't aware that PCs had a virus problem.

As far as I can tell, running a Personal Computer does not make you susceptible, running windows makes you susceptible. People running a decent O/S on their PC (OS X / openBSD / linux / etc) seem to be no more susceptible to viruses then phones are.

(Interestingly enough, this ties into my latest journal - "Why is Apple afraid of being PC")

Anway, back to the article, in addition to a platform that's more robust the windows, the network that malware will propagate on (ignoring bluetooth for the moment) is not a hostile network like the internet, but a far more controlled one & sms propagation could be stopped pretty quickly.

To go back to the windows analogy, if MS had controlled all email networks [shudder] back when Melissa / Lovebug / etc hit, it would not have been such a problem. Propagation could have been stopped by inspecting & disinfecting attachments as they passed through gateways.

Summary: -1 'Security Vendors scrambling to find new revenue, but other markets more secure then windows'

Re:PC != Windows.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>To go back to the windows analogy, if MS had controlled all email networks [shudder] back when Melissa / Lovebug / etc hit, it would not have been such a problem.

I know some people who were working at Microsoft when "I LOVE YOU" hit, and it propagated through the internal corporate network just fine.

Any network is hostile if it lets endpoints talk to endpoints and if the endpoints aren't trustworthy.

I disagree

[WinterSolstice]

I think that thinking of this in terms of "PC equiv of 1988" is BS. In 1988 people weren't even sure if the PC was going to last. The world had just gone from dozens of machines which were completely incompatible (Commodore, Apple, Timex etc) to one system emerging as an almost standard. I know that the idea viruses or worms getting to this point was certainly out of my head at that time.

I also don't think anyone expected there to be so many machines attached to each other as we have now.

Basically, I don't think that a cell phone virus would have nearly the impact of even a simple PC virus due to the fact that (as the article states) people just aren't that unprepared anymore. Maybe if we all were given wide open Windows !Smart Phones? Besides - I think my carrier would probably *charge* me to run a virus :D

-WS

Seems you're not so immune

[DrSkwid]

You have the usianTHEN.32 virus that transforms any uses of than to then to make you look illiterate.

Re:Seems you're not so immune

[svkal]

there [are] illiterates everywhere people can read & write

Frankly, I think there are more illiterates where people can't read or write.

My N70 had norton

[vasanth]

I was surprised to see that my nokia N70 came with Norton anti virus for mobile phones installed.. And expected it was hogging my phone resource making the menus sluggish and got rid of the crap...

I don't think mobile phone virus threat is much due to the varieties in platform the phones run.. Its just another way for anti virus companies to make money

Disagree all you like, doesn't make it true

[DrSkwid]

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_1169.htm

Stoned

Type
        Virus
SubType
        Boot
Discovery Date
        02/01/1988

FUD

[edxwelch]

I think the origonal story, which stated that smartphones were unsecure, is total fud. A confirmation dialog box comes up on you screen when some one tries to connect via Bluetooth (and most people have bluetooth switched off anyways, becuase it consumes power), so really this virus would never have a chance to spread in real life and only seems to serve the purpose as a scare story

Easy way to prevent viruses

[Alicat1194]

Keep Bluetooth switched off unless you're specifically using it. No avenue of transmission = no virus.

Re:Easy way to prevent viruses

[sparr0w]

that'll work for BT transmitted viruses... but more and more cellphones are starting to use internet-esque transmissions methods over broadband cellular networks.... I equate BT transmitted viruses to floppy boot-sector viruses you'd be warned about in school. When was the last time you infected your Windows box by putting a rouge floppy in? How about from the Internet?

I think we need to take a more serious look at this problem. In the 70's and 80's, people laughed off the possibility of threats like these. Now, we spend millions of dollars trying to keep control over these growing problems. Hopefully we can take what we've learned with past threats and how they've evolved to help stop the flow across this new frontier... or at least slow them down. However, since many of these "smart" phones are already running versions of Windows, are we already doomed...?

Ground control to Major Tom

[packetmon]

Just because there aren't as many at this time doesn't mean it isn't likely to become a big issue in the future. What I perceive happening at some point is a rogue group creating viruses to steal contacts then selling those contacts. Imagine the market for say Pamela Anderson's phone list... Imagine one for say the phone list of the President. While doing network studies (CCDP) I thought about the dangers of a multicast worm/virus. It would work spoofing corrupt images say to MSN messenger or Yahoo messenger or any other IM client which is streaming ads... Once streamed an infected image would take over a victim machine... While the concept is theoretical it isn't that far fetched...

yeah, "on top of the problem"

[bobamu]

by that I suppose they mean locking out the phone o/s to those who pay for certificates to sign their software with.

nobody will be able to crack that

1986?

[XO]

I know Mac and Amiga had tons of viruses before 1986, and I'd be willing to bet PC's did, too.. just that PC's weren't quite so much for game use, so there wasn't nearly as much pirating going around then...

PC == Personal Computer

[Jawbreaker4Fs]

PC stands for Personal Computer, so we can extend the definition to include Macs, Commodore 64s... and why not toasters (ones that have embedded computers, of course).
This misnomer always bothered me.