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Cell Phone Viruses

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DQC Bureau
New Update

Technology experts believe that most cellphones are not yet so powerful to be

affected by viruses. The next generation of web-enabled cell phones will be

vulnerable to viruses, they say, when users can download applications for cell

phones from the Internet.

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Viruses

need an operating system, which runs applications in a read-write memory

environment, so that they can stay resident in the system and attack it at the

first opportunity. If the operating system and any applications are executed

from a Read-Only memory, viruses can´t survive and reproduce themselves to

spread to other systems.

Recently there has been an increase in friendly virus warnings about cell

phone viruses, which, till now have proved only to be hoaxes. One such virus

warning reads like this:

Attention - everyone with a mobile phone!

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This is not a joke, this is an early warning.... If you receive a phone call

and your mobile phone display reads:!? UNAVAILA-BLE!?, a virus will erase all

IMIE and IMSI information from both your phone and your SIM card, which will

make your phone unable to connect with the telephone network. You will have to

buy a new phone.

This is a very old warning, which seems to have somehow resurfaced again in

India. This warning was also a hoax. There is no such reported virus. Viruses

are not spread through the mere answering of a typical telephone call on your

cell phone.

Also, the message "Unavailable" on some cell phones means that you

are receiving a call from someone whose caller ID is not available and is not an

indication of trouble.

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CELL PHONE: THE NEXT FRONTIER?



For malicious computer hackers and virus writers, however, the next frontier

in mischief could be the cell phone. A phone virus or "Trojan horse"

program might instruct your phone to do extraordinary things, computer security

experts say. Of course, the handset and the services provided by your cell phone

company also need to be powerful enough to become vulnerable to the cell phone

virus attacks.

When this is the case, the phone virus might forward your personal address

book to a telemarketing firm. Or it could simply eat into the phone’s

operating software, shutting it down and erasing your personal information.

"If a malicious piece of code gets control of your phone, it can do

everything you can do," says Ari Hypponen, a computer security expert.

"It can call numbers. It can get your messages and send them

elsewhere."

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We should think of cell phones as just another set of computers on the

Internet. If they’re connected to the Internet they can be used to transmit

threats and attack targets, just as any computer can. It’s technically

possible right now.

SMS AS A VIRUS CARRIER



In Europe, it has been reported that, short messaging service (SMS) has been

used to randomly send pieces of binary code that crashes phones, forcing the

user to restart phones. A new, more sinister version keeps crashing the phone

until the SMS message is deleted from the carrier’s server. In India,

thankfully, relatively primitive cell phone technology will keep users immune

from such attacks, for some more time.

John Draper, of Stockton, California is known as ´Captain Crunch´ for

pioneering the hacking of phone networks with the help of a whistle to produce

different tones. For today´s virus writers who want to wreak maximum havoc,

there are still very few cell phones that can support the execution of virus

code, and no common operating system platform like Windows to attack.

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Virus code needs smart phones that allow third party downloads of

applications to run on the cell phone. The new features of WAP technology will

probably bring the first true cell phone viruses, as it will enable mobile

phones to interact with Java applets.

MY MOBILE, DUMBEST!



Cell phone users can easily avoid this risk of viruses, of course, by

sticking with their "dumb" phones. These "dumb" phones can

also come under attack from outside. As the use of SMS spreads, and the e-mail

to SMS feature becomes popular - viruses like "Timophonica" which had

originated in Spain, can play havoc. This is not really a cell phone virus that

actually infects the phone and makes it go bad, as do computer viruses, but an

e-mail virus which generates random cell phone numbers and floods those phones

with SMS messages sent via e-mail.

If you send enough e-mail to cell phones on a particular network, it can

basically jam up the network and possibly even jam up the phones. It’s not a

virus but more a form of spam, clogging the cell phone with unwanted messages.

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Usually, you store less than 100 phone numbers in your cell phone. Still, the

potential for mischief exists. And even if your cellular phone is backed up, the

consequences of losing your key business phone numbers could be costly, if you’re

thousands of miles from home and unable to restore the backed up information.

SIMPLICITY, THE BEST POLICY



Ultimately, it is theoretically possible to send a virus that could erase a

cellular phone’s memory–just as a computer’s hard drive can be erased. But

so far there has been no such case.

Still, it’s wise to backup all your data, including the phone numbers in

your automatic-dial feature. (What if you lost your cell phone?) You can write

the telephone numbers on paper.

And if you are eagerly waiting to buy newer and newer models of cell phones

with new features - take a second look at the features. The more the

convenience, the lesser the security. It´s your choice!

Ashok Dongre

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