Viruses new danger for mobile phones

The problem is still a small one, with only a few cases reported globally so far. But as operating systems in mobile phones become standardized, hackers are likely to begin focusing on vulnerabilities in those systems as they have with personal computers. But as more companies start using generic software on their phones, hackers will find it more worthwhile to create viruses that can affect a large number of phones. “For hackers, it’s only interesting to write viruses that can do damage,” Stefan Fillip, a partner at Mercer Management Consulting in Hong Kong, told the International Herald Tribunes. “As soon as more 3G networks are deployed and people can send attachments and files, it’ll get interesting for attackers.” In the worst case, malicious attacks on mobile phones in 2005 could result in $471 million in costs for every five millions users affected, according to some estimates.Even many of the most basic phones on the market now support functions that allow third parties to customise the look and feel of the phone. Several years ago the first phone to support such functionality was launched, the Nokia Communicator 9000. There are a number of commands that can be sent to this device using an SMS message that can configure the web settings and allow ringtones and pictures to be stored. This functionality has been evolved to most of the new Nokia products so a malicious hacker, with access to a free SMS gateway could wipe out the connection settings on a WAP phone, send malicious messages or even salacious pictures – however this type of mischief can still not be classed as a virus as there is no replication involved. Spam, though, is relatively benign compared with viruses and worms that could attack handsets. The first real danger lies with some of the “push” functions that will be introduced with WAP 1.2. One of the functions will be the origination of calls from the device. If a script could be created that would trigger calls or SMS messages from a mobile phone it would then be possible for a mobile virus to replicate itself from one phone to another with the by-product of so much traffic being generated on the mobile network that there would be a real danger of the network getting overloaded. In addition to the overloading of networks there is clearly the customer care headache such a virus could pose, e.g. who pays for the calls etc.In fact, this is what has already happened. On Jan. 17, researchers in Holland discovered a bug in the operating system used in many popular Nokia phones. A hacker could exploit the security hole by sending a malformed SMS message capable of crashing the operating system. And last year in Japan, where mobile telephone networks are more advanced, a hacker sent an e-mail to 13 million users of the i-mode wireless data service. When users opened the e-mail, their phones were taken over by the rogue program — which dialed 1-1-0, Japan’s emergency hotline number. To help protect against mobile viruses, antivirus software maker Symantec sells an antivirus program for handhelds that use the Palm operating system. So far only four viruses targeting the Palm OS have been discovered. But Jason Conyard, director of mobile products for Symantec told newspapers that wireless carriers have to do their part, too. “Over time as we see new types of threats — be they viruses or worms — emerge, carriers will need to be sensitive to that, because it may actually impact their infrastructure,” he said. “Carriers need to be aware of the connected nature of the services that they’re delivering. They need to be thinking around content filtering, they need to be thinking about mail messages that may end up on people’s devices.” In typical mobile phones, the central processing units that serve as the brain of the handset are about as sophisticated as those in personal computers five or six years ago. But for now, most mobile-phone companies customize the operating systems for their handsets, so the number of people using any one platform is small compared with, say, the number of people using Microsoft Outlook, a standard e-mail program for personal computers. In the future the threat of viruses is always likely to exist, particularly as the mobile phones become increasingly intelligent. The challenge for the industry is to tackle these problems head-on. The security of end-users devices is not an area that can be taken lightly and all the parties involved in delivering services to the end users from Infrastructure and phone manufacturers to network operators need to work together to ensure that all the appropriate measures are taken to protect phones and networks alike. Elisabeth FilleContact: fille@aon,at

Viruses new danger for mobile phones

Experts say: damage may cost millions of dollars

Südtiroler Wirtschaftszeitung

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Viruses new danger for mobile ­phones

Experts say: damage may cost millions of dollars

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Viruses new danger for mobile phones