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First Cell Phone Virus  Discovered
On: Tue June, 15 2004 @ 10:26 GMT
It had to happen sooner or later. Just to show  that it could be done, thus
demonstrating another vulnerability in part of  our infrastructure, some 
clever
programmers have create a virus that can  infect cell phones and other 
mobile
devices. This virus is being tested in  labs but is not yet "in the wild."

original  news source:
_Cabir Virus First To Attack Cell  Phones_
(http://wireless.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Cabir-Virus-First-To-Attack-Cell-Phones&story_id=25403&ca
tegory=wlssecurity)
A new virus called "Cabir" is winning notoriety as  the first to attack
mobile operating systems. The creators of Cabir have  not designed the worm 
to
propagate on a massive scale, but rather to  demonstrate that cell phones 
and PDAs
can be infected by malicious  code.

Please visit  the link provided for the complete story.


To be  attacked and infected, your mobile phone or PDA has to run the
_Symbian_ (http://www.symbian.com/)  operating system,  have the _BlueTooth_
(http://www.bluetooth.com/)   wireless technology enabled, the user must 
launch the
file that is  transmitted, and ignore two messages warning that the source 
of
the  software is unknown. That may sound tough and unlikely, but since so 
many
computer users in the world are obviously still clicking on email  
attachments
it is dangerous enough. Fortunately this virus was first given  to antivirus
labs and wireless experts instead of being released into the  public. The
makes affected include Nokia, Siemens, Sony, and Ericcson. The  good news is 
that
this version does not seem to actually do anything  really harmful -except 
run
down the device's battery by constantly  scanning for other devices to
infect. The visible effects on phones are  these:

* Displays a message (see the "Technical Details" section),  then copies
itself to a directory on the phone. (This directory is not  visible, by 
default.)
* Runs from this directory when the phone is  restarted, so that it 
continues
to work even if the files are deleted from  the APPS directory.

The removal process seems  rather "involved" for the casual user.

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