Makes you happy to be on Windows - Symbian Virus!

[Guest Dr Who]

Been away for a while, so apologies if this has been seen before.

http://www.whatlaptop.co.uk/YVhoLrc.html

[Guest Leaskovski]

Been away for a while, so apologies if this has been seen before.

http://www.whatlaptop.co.uk/YVhoLrc.html

Yeah, the BBC have just run an item on this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4033231.stm

Look at the title of the report! Whooo there BBC... Needless to say i have emailed them saying that MS might get hacked off and threaten to sue them (they seem to be doing it alot at the moment) due to the title of the report.

[Guest morpheus2702]

Isn't it just a case that virus writers target the most popular OS's, not that say Windows Smartphone are immune to such threats?

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

But unlike Symbian phones effeceted we can just Hard Reset to fix the problem :lol:

[Guest blowdart]

Isn't it just a case that virus writers target the most popular OS's, not that say Windows Smartphone are immune to such threats?

Well thats part of the MS arguement against Linux :lol:

[Guest chucky.egg]

They're getting closer to a proper virus, but it still doesn't spread itself

You can do the equivalent of a Hard Reset (well you can on UIQ at any rate, dunno about Series 60) but I doubt many S60 users know how.

[Guest Dr Who]

No, I was just pleased that the smartphone platform is considered too unpopular to target. Now if I could only interface with a Mac I would be almost totally secure..........

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

See my comments in this thread!

http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=118101

[Guest midnight]

to be quite honest, ms smartphone is just as vulnerable to attack, in fact, if not more so.

[Guest olly_k]

I like this bit in the bbc report...

A statement by Symbian played down the significance of the malicious program and said few people would fall victim to it as users have to go through several steps to install it, one of which includes ignoring a security warning.

Hmmm, I am sure they are right :lol:

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I'm not saying WM for Smartphone is any less susceptible, its just interesting the only two virus' for phones are Symbian only.

[Guest midnight]

the biggest problem with ms smartphone is that there is a method of spreading a virus, ok, it isnt perfect, but just consider this for a moment.....

PC's can receive virii quite easily, now, virus protection apps work on the fact that they are resident in the PC memory and so can be detected easily as soon as they do something naughty. however, if the virus wasnt written for the pc and doesnt affect the pc in any malicious manner then its hard to be found out quickly, so, if a virus that infects the pc but just remains dormant until there is an activesync connection then, copies itself to the phone into the startup dir, again, not doing anything until the phone is reset then there could be a problem.

as soon as the phone is reset it kicks in cos its in the startup part of the phone, ok, you still have the problem of it asking the first time its run cos its not signed (or do you, cos its possible to bypass this but obviously i wont say how), but a simply call it Sim Update and if people see 'do you weant to install the sim update' then how many people would say yes??? i'm sure most people would. Then you can do pretty much anything you like, hard reset, send contacts via gprs, lots of things, and the thing is, even if you hard reset, the next time you connect the phone to the pc it starts over again.

oh, and the 2 symbian ones aint really virii

for a start they aint self replicating, also, the first was a copy protection scheme that the developer didnt think of the consequences, and this second just looks like bad programming

[Guest Dr Who]

I'm sure it's vulnerable but IMHO why would anyone want to do it at the moment, other than proof of concept. You could bring down, what, a few thousand users in the UK? How many people have symbian running on their phones - tens or hundreds of thousands?

[Guest pwest13]

Wouldn't be suprised if the people who write some of the anti-virus software for smart phones make 'Trojans' like these to boast there sales, or is that very scepticle?

[Guest morpheus2702]

Yes, isn't there mobile versions of Norton and McAffee available? That always confused me because I thought Pocket PC viruses didn't exist (at least until earlier this year)?

[Guest Leaskovski]

Quote

Yeah, the BBC have just run an item on this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4033231.stm

Look at the title of the report! Whooo there BBC... Needless to say i have emailed them saying that MS might get hacked off and threaten to sue them (they seem to be doing it alot at the moment) due to the title of the report.

Well this morning i received an email from a Technology Correspondent

in the BBC. This is what he had to say....

Quote

 

thanks for the mail about our story on the Skulls program that is causing problems for some Symbian phones. Like you say Microsoft is trying to grab the Smartphone name for itself but Symbian isn't afraid of using the term either so I think we should be okay describing the handsets this way. As we make it clear which phones are affected I don't think people will get the idea that it is Microsoft's gadgets that are suffering the security glitch.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2016 by Leaskovski

[Guest chucky.egg]

Oh, I see what you meant now.

"Smartphone" is what MS call (or called?) their smartphones, but smartphone (little s) is a generic term.

[Guest ghm101]

Here is a bit more on Phone viruses

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Nov25.html

"(For)Now, computers are a bigger target. Cell phones use a number of operating systems, meaning that separate programs must be designed to disable each one. That makes it harder to design a mass attack."

I guess what will happen is that some virus writer, experienced in writing the highly sophisticated viruses and malware of today, will dream up a particularly nasty Smartphone focused effort. The sophistication of this attack will be such that when combined with Microsofts history of Afterthought security implemetation, and the general "not a big issue" attitude of the mobile industy, our phones will suffer.

Imagine some sort of ActiveSync Dispersed Virus - one that targets any device connected to it, you would have problems with your phone, Hard reset it, sync with active sync again and have the same problem all over again.

Hopefully this initial attacks will continue to be aimed at Symbian as a bigger target, and that will then spur development of effective protection tools for us as a precaution.

[Guest Tunney]

I'm not saying WM for Smartphone is any less susceptible, its just interesting the only two virus' for phones are Symbian only.

Actually, there was a proof-of-concept version of Cabir for MS Smartphone too.

It's interesting to note that the recently release Nokia 6670 smartphone comes with anti-virus software pre-installed. What this does to your battery life, I'm not sure.

At the moment, I don't think either platform is more secure than the other. Microsoft has a bad record when it comes to security and Symbian probably didn't think about it when they first designed their OS. I think how the two react is more important than their current position.

And yes, there's more Symbian viruses because it's far more popular. What are the latest market share statistics? 87% v 4%?

[Guest Microsoft]

:shock: :shock:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen...bos.skulls.html

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/skulls.shtml