Possible Mobile Phone Virus????

[Guest paradox ewan]

From a freind of mine on another board-

just had a friend ring me for advice.

Her Fathers (UK) mobile/cell phone has recieved 33 calls since Friday, from a woman maturbating (before anybody jumps to the obvious, ) The man is elderly (72) and his mobile is a life line.

The screen logos have changed daily since the first call on Friday, and now his numbers list has been overwrittin with the source number.

He's been too upset to be certian if she's live or recorded.

The police have traced the callers number but are not able to prosecute. all they can say at this time is the number connects to a computer or fax machine.

How is that possable? how can a phones menu be lost from an external source ?

Is this the start of phones being hacked?

Could his phone have been cloned?

Is there a means by how he could have been duped into subscribing to some new form of ring back sexline?

Can his service provider filter a number?

Is there a chance that the old boys has been up to no good and is covering his tracks?

I'm Posting in the off chance that one of you may know about this kind of thing. Ive fobbed him off untill tomorrow evening. His reason for calling me was to see if I could find out whos doing this to him through the net. I doubt that It would be possable to find anything out about a source telephone number from the net, however, I have made a note of it In the off chance that any of your know different.

Other than seeing the funny side of it, my only suggestion to him so far was changing his number, but the lost numbers and screen savers are a concern that could become a major security problem of the future for everyone with a mobile.

Any solid explinations?

[Guest paradox ewan]

Ok details.

Samsung flip V200 pay as you go O2 network.

This is where it gets interesting.

The inbound calls are eating his credit but keep on coming when the credit is used up.

The phone number list is not totally gone,The names remain but the numbers are over written with the source callers number.

The caller is almost certianly a recording. as this girl is repeating her performance anything up to three times per hour

Attempts at any outgoing cally are comming up with "this service is not available"

We can probably rule out any messing about from the old boy. Ive just learned that the phone is his recent first and hes not a phone friendly user. the only numbers in his list where inserted by his daughter and contained only family numbers. The phone was/is new from argos. the has if only a matter of months. His daughter downloaded a custom ring tone and logo "66 squadron" form a reputable supplier, "mototone" was what it sounded like to me.

And also the phone was a present from tha family to keep in touch (he's been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and they're naturally worried).

A new sim has been order an is to be collected tomorrow. On my suggestion, they will hold fire on using it untill we can get sme handle on this, incase the phone is now corrupted.

Text messages also appear into the phne from the same source caller and it been noticed that some come in what is described as japaneeze writing before resolving into stars and hearts.

My immediate thoughts are this could be a new scam to milk credit from pay as you go users, by making it embarressing to step forward with the problem. Both the oold fella and his daughter where believing that the calls where live and he's feeling stalked.

Ive pressed for detail and they found that the calls start and end the same way and are around 5mins when left to play out. The daughter has now listened to several of them at my request while listening for audio quality and similaritys. Judging by her discription of audio quality and improbable acustics and exagerated audio detailing. its almost sure to be a recording or perhaps two recordings in rotation.

They have suggested bringing the phone to me, but I don't think there is anything more I could learn from it.

I have the source number if anybody can squeeze anything form it. Pm me if you feel it would help discover whats going on. my gut feeling is that hes been targeted as pay as you go and that an external program has been used to corrupt his phone with the sole purpose of leaching the credit in some way. I have a feeling the recording may be a smoke screen for some new credit scam hackware.

[Guest lowbug]

I would try the phone company if they are no help try OFCOM.

Scary! Good luck dude! :)

[Guest chucky.egg]

The V200 doesn't have a "smart" OS, so I'd be surpirsed if it's any phone-related "virus"/hack.

You can send vCards (contact details) over SMS, so perhaps his phone has just received a high number of these from the Mystery Woman and the previous entries are way down the list (or have been removed by adding so many, although I don't think it would do that).

The new SIM will probably fix it, but I'd be inclined to do a factory reset on the phone to remove all the junk first. It might be worth setting an inbound call restriction, so it only accepts calls from nominated numbers (if that's possible with this phone).

[Guest mvsmith07]

Orange have sent SIM updates to my SPV E100 to update the settings for the Internet. Has someone found a way of using this feature to manipulate a phone in another way? Are these SIM updates only available for smartphone users and not standard phones? I don't know. I can't remember ever having a SIM update for a phone before this E100. Or have I, yes I have. I had a V200 and put an Orange PAYG SIM in it. Orange sent me a SIM update when I registered the card.

[Guest Richie M]

mvsmith07 SIM updates are for any phone, and AFIK only a network provider is able to send one.

[Guest]

My thoughts on the possibilities:

SIM updates corrupting the phone?

Unlikely - RichieM is right; SIM updates can only be sent by service providers and they are for any phone. Also they update details on the SIM – not on the handset – so couldn’t be used to corrupt the phone itself.

Virus?

Mobile phone viruses are a potential threat for the future but are not happening at the moment. Also I would expect a phone virus to behave in the same way as PC based viruses do- aiming to destroy the handset. If phone viruses do start the first ones will be quite crude and not capable of forming a complicated ring-back scam.

Cloned handset?

When a phone is cloned nothing happens on the phone itself – another handset is pretending to the network to be the cloned phone. AFAIK this is almost impossible on modern phones (used to be easier on analogue phones). If the phone was cloned the only indication would be disappearing credit – the cloner wouldn’t want to draw any further attention to themselves.

There is no way at the moment for someone to corrupt your phone over the air - especially if it's not a smartphone (smartphones being more complicated may have holes that no-one has discovered yet).

The only reported problem that I’ve heard of was certain Nokias crashing when sent a badly formed text message – in this case the phone just stopped working until rebooted.

Sounds like someone has either mistakenly or maliciously signed him up to a sex-line service that charges for ringing back and sending text messages – in a similar way to weather / news services. That would explain the disappearing credit and the funky messages. It would also explain why he can’t make calls – he has no credit left- and that the police said it was coming from a computer.

If it is a scam it would be the sex-line company picking a mobile number at random and signing it up to their service without the owner’s consent. If the text messages are not in English it could be a foreign company trying the scam.

I would suggest contacting 02 and give them the number to see if they can find out who is behind it.

[Guest kingdom master]

when the sim was registered the number has been given out him and someone else. what this would mean other owner is runnin a service from the line everytime its used the cost is taken from the old guys sim. while the person calin the service pays the premium charge. if u pm me the detail il sort the prob and get u a new number etc. tom Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest]

If the number has been given out to two different people (which I doubt) you would be better off going to 02 - it's thier fook-up and they should handle all of the hassle (and be giving out refunds).

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

My thoughts on the possibilities:

Virus?

Mobile phone viruses are a potential threat for the future but are not happening at the moment.  

yes... read this:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&...0.phx.gbl#link3

[Guest]

yes... read this:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&...0.phx.gbl#link3

That is one of the many potential (if highly unlikely) threats.

There aren't any mobile phone viruses in the wild at the moment.