Another Virus First for Symbian - MMS Based Virus Found

[Mike Temporale]

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=4167

"Using MMS the CommWarrior.a virus, as SimWorks have named it, can instantaneously send itself to any mobile phone in the world. Multimedia Message Service (MMS) is a more advanced version of the text message service (TXT) familiar to millions of phone users, and allows rich content such as pictures, sounds, video, and applications to be sent as well as text. Unlike many recent “proof of concept” mobile viruses SimWorks has already received a report of CommWarrior in the wild which it is seeking to confirm. SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson says “This is a significant development as until now mobile viruses have used Bluetooth to spread which only has a range of 10 meters surrounding the infected device. Using MMS viruses like CommWarrior have a much greater potential to spread globally”. CommWarrior scans the infected phone's address book and periodically sends MMS messages to randomly selected contacts. It sends a copy of itself and one of several predefined text messages designed to encourage the recipient to install the application."

Just like the other mobile based viruses that came before it, this one requires user interaction before it can get installed on your phone. I remember a simpler day, when PC based viruses tricked you into installing them by attaching themselves to innocent looking programs. It's only a matter of time before a weakness is found and the viruses are allowed to spread without an uneducated users assistance. If only the creators would put their efforts into something more productive. :evil:

[Mike Temporale]

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=4167

"Using MMS the CommWarrior.a virus, as SimWorks have named it, can instantaneously send itself to any mobile phone in the world. Multimedia Message Service (MMS) is a more advanced version of the text message service (TXT) familiar to millions of phone users, and allows rich content such as pictures, sounds, video, and applications to be sent as well as text. Unlike many recent “proof of concept” mobile viruses SimWorks has already received a report of CommWarrior in the wild which it is seeking to confirm. SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson says “This is a significant development as until now mobile viruses have used Bluetooth to spread which only has a range of 10 meters surrounding the infected device. Using MMS viruses like CommWarrior have a much greater potential to spread globally”. CommWarrior scans the infected phone's address book and periodically sends MMS messages to randomly selected contacts. It sends a copy of itself and one of several predefined text messages designed to encourage the recipient to install the application."

Just like the other mobile based viruses that came before it, this one requires user interaction before it can get installed on your phone. I remember a simpler day, when PC based viruses tricked you into installing them by attaching themselves to innocent looking programs. It's only a matter of time before a weakness is found and the viruses are allowed to spread without an uneducated users assistance. If only the creators would put their efforts into something more productive. :evil: