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Pinning Down the Spread of Cell Phone Viruses

Posted by timothy on from the promiscuous-mode dept.

walrabbit writes "Wang et al (2009) (from Albert-László Barabási's lab) modeled the spread of mobile phone viruses based on anonymised call and text logs of 6.2 million customers spread over 10,000 towers. Their simulations shows that the spread is dependent on the market share of a particular handset, human mobility and mode of spread: bluetooth or MMS or hybrid. 'We find that while Bluetooth viruses can reach all susceptible handsets with time, they spread slowly due to human mobility, offering ample opportunities to deploy antiviral software. In contrast, viruses utilizing multimedia messaging services could infect all users in hours, but currently a phase transition on the underlying call graph limits them to only a small fraction of the susceptible users. These results explain the lack of a major mobile virus breakout so far and predict that once a mobile operating system's market share reaches the phase transition point, viruses will pose a serious threat to mobile communications.' You can read the full text (PDF) and supporting online information (PDF) (with interesting modelling data and diagrams)." (Also summed up in a short article at CBC.)

17 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. This is why... by corychristison · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... I use the old fashioned method of communication.

  2. Wear protection! by Samschnooks · · Score: 2, Informative
    Here! Wear this!

    And don't share your phone promiscuously!

    Abstinence is the way - don't use cell phones!

    1. Re:Wear protection! by noidentity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe if they made a cell phone that was just a, you know, phone, and didn't have any extra crap in it, it wouldn't even be possible to spread any code, malicious or not.

    2. Re:Wear protection! by A12m0v · · Score: 2, Informative

      or have a kill switch, disable background processes and practice full control of the software distribution

      --
      GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
  3. One valid reason for the app store... by ducomputergeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was having this debate with someone the other night who believes that in 3 - 5 years every phone will be android. Personally I was arguing that Blackberry in the business world is pretty hard to beat and the iPhone has a sizable lead. But people tend to trade in their personal phones every couple years. Businesses usually get married to a platform and it's harder to move them away. Especially if they have invested in any applications.

    I know Apple gets flamed a lot around here by people for not being open enough and forcing developers to release apps through the app store, but I've seen it as an attempt to delay and try to prevent malware on the iPhone. Personally that's one reason why I am uncool in the geek world and don't jailbreak mine. I know I've bitched about the bluetooth stack being locked down on the iPhone. I'd love to connect a freaking wireless keyboard to it sometimes. But at the same time, I see Apple's position on controlling the gateway beyond them "being evil locking people in".

    You have the people harping on how cool Android will be because one won't "be locked into one app store" etc.. But in the back of my mind that just increases the risk of someone downloading some "Cool free app" that happens to be a malware app. It only has to happen a few times before the reputation gets out there. And it will happen because people see pops ups now that say, "Hey you have mal ware, down load our malware cleaner." And then they click and install nothing but malware.

    And I think it is much more likely given how I've seen people use their phones on such a spur of a moment basis. The number of times I've seen people just be browsing and buy/download a ringtone or app on the spur of the moment. Especially if they are at a club and have already had a few to drink and aren't thinking. (I have to take away certain people's iphones when we go out to keep them from doing anything stupid).

    Either way, I dread the day that we have to run anti-virus on our phones.

    It also makes me think there are still reasons to keep the trusty old land line around.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    1. Re:One valid reason for the app store... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      every phone will be android

      Ask them what drugs they're on. If they deny it, suggest they need meds. And have their flux capacitor reworked. And that they need to find a bucket of steam.

      People want phones first and foremost to make phone calls. A smart phone, for many of us, is a dumb decision - it's too bulky, while at the same time it doesn't have enough screen to replace even a netbook ... and for people who tend to lose their phones on an annual basis, it gets expensive fast. Phones, for most people, are semi-disposable commodities. If someone loses it, or it gets stolen, or they drop it one time too many, it's not THAT big a deal. And for the majority, that's the way it should stay, because, like hard drive failures, it's not a question of if, but when - when you lose it, drop it, it dies, or it gets swiped.

    2. Re:One valid reason for the app store... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You have the people harping on how cool Android will be because one won't "be locked into one app store" etc.. But in the back of my mind that just increases the risk of someone downloading some "Cool free app" that happens to be a malware app. It only has to happen a few times before the reputation gets out there. And it will happen because people see pops ups now that say, "Hey you have mal ware, down load our malware cleaner." And then they click and install nothing but malware.

      But Android will end up being diverse enough to withstand most malware. Even if Android is running on 100% of the phones, not all of them are going to run exploitable versions, others will have more restrictions, still others might be without data and won't receive updates locking them into a specific version.

      Also, Android is Linux. You aren't root. Theres nothing you can do to totally mess up your phone. Get a virus? No problem, just delete that user and start again. Sure, you have the downside of losing some contact info if it wasn't backed up, but its sure easier than buying a new phone.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:One valid reason for the app store... by Telvin_3d · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Through a Flash vulnerability? You really haven't paid much attention to the iPhone, have you?

    4. Re:One valid reason for the app store... by jonbryce · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In my experience people want phones first and foremost to send text messages, and to take and send photos.

    5. Re:One valid reason for the app store... by Serious+Callers+Only · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People want phones first and foremost to make phone calls. A smart phone, for many of us, is a dumb decision - it's too bulky, while at the same time it doesn't have enough screen to replace even a netbook ... and for people who tend to lose their phones on an annual basis, it gets expensive fast. Phones, for most people, are semi-disposable commodities. If someone loses it, or it gets stolen, or they drop it one time too many, it's not THAT big a deal. And for the majority, that's the way it should stay, because, like hard drive failures, it's not a question of if, but when - when you lose it, drop it, it dies, or it gets swiped.

      Today, people want phones first and foremost to make phonecalls. Tomorrow, they may want them first and foremost for email and video chat, with audio being a function not often used.

      Most people don't want to lug a laptop around just to check email/the web, they're happy to do their surfing on a tiny device they can carry around with them anyway (a smartphone). Most people will never have a 'netbook' or even know what one is, but they do know that you can now get phones which will display your email too and have access to the internet.

      As to the argument about fragility etc, I imagine similar arguments about those newfangled portable computers called laptops back in the day.

      Now perhaps you disagree with this future, but it is not improbable, and your blithe dismissal of smart-phones doesn't mean they will suddenly stop being the fastest-growing segment of phone handsets.

  4. We haven't seen an outbreak yet by Landak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The fact that we've yet to see a large mobile phone virus outbreak is wonderful proof that, (in many cases) shoddy coding, idiotic users, dodgy design methods and ample methods of communication between devices and "the wider world" does not automatically imply "virus city".

    The distributed and diverse nature of the mobile OS market means that there have never been (to my knowledge) any large infections on the scale of Blaster or so forth, and yet many (popular!) phones that I've used have had simply *awful* OSes, with known security risks, monolithic kernels, and a wide install base. Such are the benefits of not having a monopoly!

    Perhaps if Microsoft were the power it wants to be in the mobile market, we'd be far more familiar with large-scale infections of mobiles. I'm bloody glad it isn't -- MMS messages are down-right extortionate!

    --
    My UID is prime. Is yours?
    1. Re:We haven't seen an outbreak yet by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It doesn't hurt that most people don't run MS-Word and Outlook on their phones. Or an easily-compromised web server. Or have a bunch of open ports.

      Ironically, unlike a PC, there's only a few ways for a virus to phone home on a phone.

  5. It won't by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Currently, there are a ton of mobile phone platforms, unlike the desktop. This keeps the number of viruses down, secondly, most phones run slightly modified versions of the OS, not plain versions making exploiting the same hole difficult in the large scheme of things. So as long as a vendor doesn't dominate the Mobile OS market (and with Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian and iPhone OS all going to want to stay in business, it won't) I don't see viruses as being a problem at all.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  6. Phase transistion by JustOK · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wouldn't reversing polarity on the flux capacitor and diverting all power to the medical/av deflector prevent the spread of a virus?

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
    1. Re:Phase transistion by memorycardfull · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just be careful not to cross the streams. That would be very bad.

  7. Re:I'm going to laugh... by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...when the iPhone's marketshare reaches the kind of threshold this article talks about that results in it being the most popular target for spreading malicious code. Because the irony will be lost on a lot of people here.

    Probably won't happen. Too many people just want a phone. I won't even consider an iPhone because it's too bulky. I want a flip-phone so that I can fold it up and ignore it - not have to worry about scratching it. Lets face it - how many times do you drop your phone ...

    Also, how many times do you simply *lose* your phone?

  8. Lesson Du Jour... by DavidShor · · Score: 2, Informative
    This is a peeve of mine, a consequence of spending too long being tested on french grammar.

    It's "n'est-ce pas?".

    Word for word, that is "is it not?". Figuratively, it's the equivalent of "No?". The "ce", or "it", is usually silent.