Windows Mobile Virus on the Loose

[Rocco Augusto]

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/0...s-on-the-loose/

"There's nothing special about Windows Mobile, Palm, or Symbian devices that make them virus-resistant. It's just that for the most part malicious hackers haven't tried to target mobile devices because there hasn't been that much information worth stealing. But as people put more and more valuable data on their cellphones and PDAs, those devices are becoming more attractive targets. And so we probably shouldn't be surprised that McAfee released an alert this week that a virus targeting the Windows Mobile operating system is making the rounds..."



Huh, well look at that. I guess this answers that age old question for us as to why some carriers feel the need to install, what we thought to be, useless anti-virus software on our devices before sending them out in the wild. According to McAfee's website, the WinCE/InfoJack trojan sends valuable information about the infected handset to the author of the application. Some of the data that is being sent are things like the devices serial number, operating system version and anything else it can get its grubby little hands on. On top of that, it also leaves the handset vulnerable for silent installation of other types of unsigned applications and malware. This is some pretty serious and scary stuff!

The worst part about this trojan is that it appears to have been distributed via applications for stock trading, some games and even Google Maps! Now before you start panicking, I should point out that if you downloaded your Google Maps application from Google or your games applications and stock trading tips applications from or their respected developers and not off of some shady website behind the Great Wall, you're most likely in the clear! I guess our happy-go-lucky days of installing applications without a care in the world are officially over.

[Rocco Augusto]

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/0...s-on-the-loose/

"There's nothing special about Windows Mobile, Palm, or Symbian devices that make them virus-resistant. It's just that for the most part malicious hackers haven't tried to target mobile devices because there hasn't been that much information worth stealing. But as people put more and more valuable data on their cellphones and PDAs, those devices are becoming more attractive targets. And so we probably shouldn't be surprised that McAfee released an alert this week that a virus targeting the Windows Mobile operating system is making the rounds..."



Huh, well look at that. I guess this answers that age old question for us as to why some carriers feel the need to install, what we thought to be, useless anti-virus software on our devices before sending them out in the wild. According to McAfee's website, the WinCE/InfoJack trojan sends valuable information about the infected handset to the author of the application. Some of the data that is being sent are things like the devices serial number, operating system version and anything else it can get its grubby little hands on. On top of that, it also leaves the handset vulnerable for silent installation of other types of unsigned applications and malware. This is some pretty serious and scary stuff!

The worst part about this trojan is that it appears to have been distributed via applications for stock trading, some games and even Google Maps! Now before you start panicking, I should point out that if you downloaded your Google Maps application from Google or your games applications and stock trading tips applications from or their respected developers and not off of some shady website behind the Great Wall, you're most likely in the clear! I guess our happy-go-lucky days of installing applications without a care in the world are officially over.

[elipsoid]

McAffee waited too long for a mobile virus to comeup that they had to make one themselves?

[Suave74]

Then this is truly a sad day

[Rocco Augusto]

Originally Posted by elipsoid

McAffee waited too long for a mobile virus to comeup that they had to make one themselves?

While amusing, I doubt McAfee had a hand in this other than alerting the public. Though, this should give there Windows Mobile division something to do

[Mike Temporale]

The thing about this virus is that it doesn't have any real smarts in that it doesn't replicate and move between devices. You install it and then it does it's work. Of course, that typically is the first step. It's very much like the desktop viri of the past. My guess is that the virus creator took a copy of those programs installers and added his virus then posted them on mobile software sites. I don't imagine that downloading google maps FROM google will result in getting this virus.

Further, any enterprise running device management solution can simply add this to the "blacklist" and the threat is terminated. (Please note: If the enterprise has selected Yona - SCWMDM, they can only blacklist applications that are in ROM. So this virus would run free on devices managed with that solution.)

Personally, I put this in the questionable downloads from questionable sites category. But hey, that's just my $0.02