The Cell/PDA phone Viruses are here, capable of targeting most of our Nokia, Siemens, Sony, Ericsson, Motorola and Panasonic products. They could very easily infect handsets produced by other manufacturers as well. Their number is growing rapidly, within past three months 135 types of cellphone viruses are reported.
It is estimated that these Cell phone Virus already have infected over 10 million phones worldwide. They spread through Outlook, Outlook Express, PC2Cell data cable links, MMS, various seemingly harmless downloads, Web Surfing, E-Mails and every virtually unimaginable means.
Viruses And Remedies
Cell/PDA viruses and worms are of several types. Some of the prominent ones are:
1. CommWarrior and Mabir, both spread through MMS and discovered circulating among Symbian Series 60 mobile phones and PDA phones as .exe infections. Their ability to spread via wireless and MMS messages makes their containment hard. Both the viruses use MMS to spread copies of it to phone numbers stored in the address book of Cell/PDA phones it infects. The victims receive MMS messages with file attachments that contain the particular virus. These messages contain enticing messages such as ’’3DGame from me. it is FREE!’’ , my girlfriends secret pix’’ and ’’Nokia RingtoneManager for all models.’’etc.
Cure
Those who do get infected with these viruses can easily shut the virus down by pressing and holding the menu button on their cell phone, then selecting the virus name from the list of applications that appears and pressing the ??C, ?? or ??Clear, ?? button. Once the virus is disabled, mobile phone owners can use file management tools on the phone to locate and remove the virus files.
2. Cabir or Caribe was first of all detected squirming through Cell/PDA phones running the Symbian OS.
The Symbian OS powers some cell phone models manufactured by Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Panasonic. It is being transmitted as an SIS file (Symbian OS distribution file) and disguised as a Caribe Security Manager utility.
If the infected file is launched, the telephone screen will display the inscription ?Caribe.?? The worm penetrates the system and will then be activated each time the phone is started, Kaspersky Labs reports.
The worm scans for all accessible phones using Blue tooth technology and sends a copy of itself to the first one found.
The Cabir virus spread between smart phones using a specially formatted Symbian Installation System (SIS) file disguised as a security management utility. Infected phones scan for vulnerable sets using the short-range Blue tooth wireless connection, then send a file containing the worm to those phones.
Cure
Never have the Blue tooth wireless feature in ?discoverable? mode, when you are in a crowded place. Making you Cell/PDA phone in
undiscoverable mode saves you from the infection.
3. Trojan Fontal.A is a variant of the Cabir worm that also runs on Symbian Series 60 Cell/PDA phones and prevents them from restarting. ]
Fontal.A is reported from 12 countries in addition to the countries in Asia and Latin America, in four European countries: Italy, Finland, the U.K. and Russia, also.
Fontal.A is not a worm or virus, and would have to be downloaded by the Cell/PDA phone?s owner to infect the phone.
It is just the latest example of malicious code, including worms and viruses that target Cell/PDA phone devices.
Cure
Fontal.A is transferred to mobile phones as an SIS-format installer file called ?Kill Saddam By OID500.sis?? .
Once installed, the program damages the phone so that the device cannot reboot. Mobile phone users who are infected with Fontal should not turn off their phone before removing the Trojan horse manually from the menu.
4. Lasco.A and Mabir both are capable of spreading via Blue tooth and by attaching itself to files through the short-range wireless Blue tooth technology.
Cure
Like Lasco.A virus, the Mabir worm also gets activated when users click on the SIS file and install it on their phones. Since the users catch the virus unknowingly by swapping files, such as games, among themselves and by beaming data to each other?s handsets with Blue tooth and infrared or by using memory cards and even cables, it?s infection is also avoidable.
To protect your Cell/PDA phone sets, always set them to hidden Bluetooth mode, and not in discoverable mode.
5. Skulls D, An updated variant of the Skulls Trojan horse infects under disguise of a new version of the Macromedia Flash player to fool Cell/PDA phones running the Symbian operating system.
It disables applications needed to remove it, drops the Cabir.M variant onto devices, and informs users that displaying a full-screen flashing skull.
Cure
Do not accept any suspicious download, application, code, picture, attachment or freeware that comes from an unidentified source.
Beware, your friends may also recycle it. So please be sure
about their requests, MMS, files or attachments etcetera.
More Precautions & Safety Tips
1.Read your cell phone manual carefully.
2.Register your set on the company web site and regularly update your software online. This will rid you from some other worms and trojans like Mquito, MGDropper, Locknut or Gavno, Drever and Dampig infections automatically.
3.When any user try to open any infected attachment, a series of warning messages appear. You should immediately delete the attachment.
Some sets are found infected even at the showroom or factory conditions, like my beloved Motorola E398 that died even after multiple master reset/master clear attempts. (please read my review on My Motorola’s Death) Nokias also have been reported in such infected state. In such conditions when you need to master clear or reset your phone/PDA more than once and the problem is not resolved, then without delay deposit your set with the authorized service provider, before that please make a backup of your data.
Every single instance to date of viruses infecting mobile devices has one common cause - The User! Either infected files must be installed, or connections from other devices must be accepted. Never install anything unless you are sure of what it is.
6.Never download from sites that are not reputable - there are plenty of excellent well known sites offering software for your phone of PDA.
7.Do not accept incoming connections/files unless you are expecting them.
8.Turn Bluetooth off until you need it (this will improve your battery life as well).
And please, never ever forget to scan your computer to cleanse the system from impending doom.
© ashokkumarsharma