Received a message 'Update from Orange, to accept type 0': spyware?

[Guest noct]

Hi guys,

A few weeks ago, around 11th July, I received a text message from Orange_PAYM on my Omnia:

The SMS was exactly as follow:

Orange_PAYM: Hi from Orange. Your phone needs an update to use data services. We'll text you this update in a few hours, to accept it type 0. Queries; call 150

Is this legit? A moment later I received a request and without a doubt typed 0 to respond. Recently my phone's battery drains quite fast. I am now concerned that I might have accepted some spyware and now someone is remotely stealing my data on the phone over 3G, hence the decrease in battery?

Is that possible? And has anyone using Orange received the above text msg before?

I could do a hard reset but backing up GBs of data is a big hassle and i'll save that to last resort. Many thanks.

Edited August 11, 2009 by noct

[Guest Chadnan]

Hi guys,

A few weeks ago, around 11th July, I received a text message from Orange_PAYM on my Omnia:

The SMS was exactly as follow:

Orange_PAYM: Hi from Orange. Your phone needs an update to use data services. We'll text you this update in a few hours, to accept it type 0. Queries; call 150

Is this legit? A moment later I received a request and without a doubt typed 0 to respond. Recently my phone's battery drains quite fast. I am now concerned that I might have accepted some spyware and now someone is remotely stealing my data on the phone over 3G, hence the decrease in battery?

Is that possible? And has anyone using Orange received the above text msg before?

I could do a hard reset but backing up GBs of data is a big hassle and i'll save that to last resort. Many thanks.

Hard reset. It does not erase your My Storage drive or you Storage Card, just your phone memory, so your contacts, texts, calls, etc are erased - you can back them up tho with PIM or Microsoft My Phone (google them) then reinstall into your phone after hard reset.

To hard reset - turn off phone. hold hold "send" and "end" hard buttons on front of phone. Keep them held down while you turn on phone - format screen should show up. click hard "send" button to format (only) Device storage. if phone boots up normally, just try again

Contact back up program can be kept in my storage or storage card. find file, open it, install contacts ... your good (maybe soft reset) :)

hope it helps!

*or flash somebody's ROM - all the cool kid's are doing it

Edited August 11, 2009 by Chadnan

[Guest valkryomnia]

The post above should have solved the issue... just wanted to say this:

You have all heard of the iPhone's txt hack, where a square is sent you you're phone, and its instantly taken over and killed on the spot? Well, the developers of this hack have seemed to get a version working on winmo, so it can now affect us aswell. If you recieve a strange txt, immediatly delete it and soft reset!

[Guest noct]

The post above should have solved the issue... just wanted to say this:

You have all heard of the iPhone's txt hack, where a square is sent you you're phone, and its instantly taken over and killed on the spot? Well, the developers of this hack have seemed to get a version working on winmo, so it can now affect us aswell. If you recieve a strange txt, immediatly delete it and soft reset!

But if i don't respond to the text at all, i will still get affected? If that's the case, shouldn't i hard reset because soft reset would already be too late?

At this moment, is there anything i can do to check if my phone is indeed hacked before doing a hard reset? like somewhere specific to lookup in registry or a virus scan?

i know a hard reset will solve the issue regardless but just want to know if it's indeed hacked (ie any of my email passwords stored in the phone is stolen)

[Guest natedawg1013]

First, to clear things up, the iphone virus doesn't kill your phone. It gives the attacker almost full control over it. Second, the Windows Mobile virus, to my knowledge, has not come out yet, as the developer has just recently told Microsoft about it, and is giving them time to fix it.

Second, check your startup folder, and also look for any suspicious processes.

This doesn't sound like the cell phone virus, because it would come from a friend with your number, as it can only move phone-to-phone, and because it doesn't need consent.

Also, make sure your data connection is disconnected, but able to connect if a program requests. Next, kill all programs, including activesync, that might use the data connection, and periodically check to see if the data connection is in use.

Finally, there is the human element. You might be checking your phone more often, if you believe something is there, causing you to use up the battery more quickly. Either way, report back after trying some of these suggestions.