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Memory Cards of 3,000 Phones Infected By Malware
itwbennett sends us a few links from IT World tracing a story about infected microSD cards in Vodaphone-supplied mobile phones. "The original report came on March 8 after an employee of Panda Security plugged a newly ordered HTC Magic phone from Vodafone into a Windows computer, where it triggered an alert from the antivirus software. Further inspection of the phone found the device's 8GB microSD memory card was infected with a client for the now-defunct Mariposa botnet, the Conficker worm, and a password stealer for the Lineage game. At that point it was at thought to be an issue with a specific refurbished phone. On Wednesday another phone surfaced with traces of the Mariposa botnet. And now Vodafone is saying that as many as 3,000 HTC Magic phones may be affected."
this wasn't software downloaded from the internet for the phone, it appears the card was infected before it was put into the phone. the code wouldn't even execute on the phone, only if you plugged the phone into your computer and mounted the sd card. thus the walled garden wouldn't protect you and is completely unrelated.
Oops.
Since Dell prepped a new machine for shipping.
How long before dedicated code will be found to use smart mobiles for some kind of bot-nets?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
...do you suppose shipped out on those SD cards. I know where my mind strays, but more likely it was probably a bunch of pictures of cats and annoying ringtones.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Is stuff like this malicious? Like someone at the memory card plant put the virus executables on the hardware? Or is it just a case of the worker having an infected computer, which then infected the memory cards?
I sense the Evil Hand of Steve Jobs behind this!!!!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Probably occurred in much the same as it did for Dell. Someone went and used a production computer for personal use.
You would figure that all the computers on the factory floor would be locked down tight.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
How do they know it's not 2,000 or 10,000. Hell, earlier this week it was an "isolated incident."
Facts have a liberal bias.
Why would an SD card come anywhere near a PC during the manufacturing process? Aren't they fabricated in large batches, not unlike RAM or CPUs? The only part of the process that I would think might involve a PC would be the formating at the end. Yet it seems like they'd have a dedicated hardware device that formats multiple chips at a time.
It's like Apple, too small a base to target !!
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1597220/mac-os-x-zero-day-flaws
From TFA:
With the first phone, the Mariposa botnet code automatically ran and attempted to infect a computer. Mariposa was at one time one of the largest botnets, but security researchers were able to shut it down in December after disabling its command-and-control servers
It's a Windows malware, right? So a "Windows" computer connect to the phones sdcard and attempts to autorun whatever on it.
I don't see how the malware can somehow activated and affect Android Linux O/S running on ARM chip inside a user-mode VM.
Do botnets have legs now?
Unless itcan automagically start VMWare to use Windows XP, the code can't do shit.
I would strongly suspect that(for reasons of economics) the "dedicated hardware device" that formats multiple chips at the same time is based on a commodity PC, probably running XP, running some hacked-together program for doing the formatting and testing.
The only real question is whether the hardware interface between the commodity PC components and the large number of SD cards is something fairly custom, or basically just a whole lot of USB SD card readers mounted in some sort of frame. A specialized interface could probably be quite useful in a heavily automated situation, particularly if it consisted of some sort of contact array that could connect to an entire tray of cards in one robotic motion; but if you are using human labor for this step, the ability to build a large array of ports for under $10/port, easily swapping out any whose contacts wear out, is probably pretty attractive.
Does Apple have a patent on this already?
It happened with some iPods several years back. As far as I heard, the iPods were quality-tested using an infected Windows machine in the Chinese factory.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No bark... no fruit!
In the one case I'm familiar with, which was at another company, the infection was traced to a single PC on the production floor that was just *packed* with malware. Apparently, it had been re-purposed from somebody's desk to the QA station when production capacity was expanded.
This was at a reputable, top-tier contract manufacturing company.
Since the walled garden (iPhone) doesn't have an SD card slot, we would not be affected. So the walled garden does protect us.
It is also likely that said SD cards have factory preinstalled files such as wallpapers, ringtones, etc. so even if there is a machine that isn't even remotely attached to a PC, a PC had to be used to make the master image that gets dumped onto all these SD cards.
I would imagine it works like some of the HD duplicators out there. a machine full of SD slots, one of them is a master slot and the rest of them get the blank cards. whatever is plugged into the master slot gets cloned to the rest of the cards.
at some point that card in the master slot had to be in a PC to setup the directory structure, copy in files, etc.
and this is what happens when you buy from the lowest bidder in china.
I'm one of the nerdiest /. nerd. This post typed on an old IBM Model M (a modded 'blind' one, mind you) and I've got several of these. Next to me is an HP LasertJet 4M+ which gives me an erection everytime I netcat a PostScript file directly to its IP address (I also have got several of these and I "upgrade" them etc.).
Yet I don't care about apps on my phone. I don't care about surfing with my phone. I don't care about calendar on my phone.
I actually don't give a flying f*ck about my phone (please don't mod troll nor spam). To me it's really just a device allowing to give and answer calls.
I've got two 24" screens and I work on them 10 hours / day and when I'm off the online world, I'm off: I don't want to check my GMail account anymore, I don't want to follow my eBay auctions. I'm done.
I just want a cellphone that allows, well, you know, to call people.
What would be the simplest, easiest, cellphone with the least functionality (no bluetooth, no Java, no appstore, no memory card) that would fit me?
You know, one with ten numbers and a "call" and a "hang up" button?
Glad I use Virgin Mobile!
Like Amiga nobody's ever heard of it... not even virus writers.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
nobody's ever heard of it... not even virus writers.
But when they do, it'll be fucked - and that's the end of its Virginity.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
Believe in magic? I sure as hell don't. iPhone FTW!!!!
Decided to perform a virus scan on my newly aquired myTouch 3G phone which comes with an 8GB memory card, and my antivirus showed two infected files. Time to give T-Mobile a friendly call.
Maybe this is one example of why it might be a good idea to have one available for an occasional scan. Admittedly anyone running a *nix based computer would not have had a problem with this malware.
This comes as no surprise to me and I remember thinking when i saw console systems such as the Dreamcast go online how long will it be before these systems act as gateways for malware as they continue to make devices more networkable. Now days with all the major consoles and smart phones online and tethiered to your PC it seems more dangerous than ever. How many of you have anti virus for your Playstation 3 , Xbox 360, WII, Iphone, or Droid?
Chris Sheppard
I know you jest but everyone knows the Virgin brand. Everyone knows Branson has his fingers in all the pies.
Virgin, Tesco and the other MVNOs are going to fight it out soon. I wouldn't be surprised if Virgin won.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Holy crap, that's a lot more phones than I last read. And the Mariposa botnet isn't completely out of the picture. It may be old, but it's still a possible threat, especially if someone has access to phone cards.
That's why I still carry my Nokia circa 1977. It like the iPhone is superior because its lack of function keeps me safe.
Posting AC because Mac fanbois are zealots & have modpoints
Somebody said it, well now I don't have to, limiting features does indeed limit the trouble that can be achieved by those features, just ask any cave man, darn, I said it anyways.
Except for the fact that, you know, 3K phones were infected. I don't like Apple's game, but denying that it keeps this sort of shit out of the ecosystem is silly. You make yourself look like a fool.
I forget what 8 was for.
I purchased a digital picture frame made by Insignia in 2008. When Plugged into my PC my AV(Nod32 Eset) found two files it listed as viruses. After removing them, the picture frame worked fine.
About a month later Insignia sent a letter explaining there may have been viruses on the internal memory of the frame.I think this happens quite a bit.