The threat of malicious mobile viruses first appeared back in 2005 when a computer worm was found to be infecting Symbian series 60 mobile phones. The worm replicated itself through the phone’s MMS system and sent copies of itself to other phone owners listed in the phone user’s address book.

A recent case in Spain started via email. When the user opens the attachment on their PC, the virus generates a “junk” text message, which is sent out to a random phone number. Anti-virus software companies say that the virus will not infect the mobile phone itself.

  Virus authors are normally 14-26 year old males who spend a lot of time on their computers. Some of them want to prove they are good programmers. Others want to show that they have the power to cause large-scale problems.

Types of virus

From worms to macros, there’s a whole host of viruses out there to catch…

Worms

Trojans

File viruses

Boot sector viruses

Macroviruses

Hoaxes

Mobile phone viruses

Although rare, mobile phones are the latest technology to be hit by virus problems. Some people have discovered that it is possible to crash certain types of mobile by sending them a coded text message.

Common mobile viruses

Cabir: Infects mobile phones running on Symbian OS. When a phone is infected, the message ‘Cabir’ is displayed on the handset’s screen and is displayed whenever the phone is switched on.

Skulls: A trojan horse, which, once downloaded, replaces all phone desktop icons with images of a skull. It also renders all phone applications, including SMS and MMS useless

Commwarrior: A worm that spreads itself to other devices via MMS messages. The worm infects devices running on OS Symbian Series 60. Once launched, Commwarrior searches for other accessible Bluetooth devices and sends infected files.

Virus Statfile

• The average mobile operator cleans 55,000 viruses off its network daily.

• 3% to 5% of all SMS is spam.

• We have seen 14% of MMS in the Middle East is virus-infected.

• The Middle East is uniquely vulnerable to viruses and spam, having a higher rate than the rest of the world.

• The latest mobile threats are SMS that charge a one-time fee to users who click on an embedded link, evidenced by a “Happy Ramadan” malware scam that hit Saudi Arabia last year.

• The new mobile viruses are designed to grab and send data stored in a phone or send a communication to every contact stored in a phone list. In Europe, an employee downloaded a virus, which sent a pornographic image to everyone in his corporate phone.

People think this is a threat of the future, but the technology is here today and we already have over 200 viruses targeted at the mobile phone. Despite a lack of industry debate about mobile viruses, operators are aware of the problem and many are looking at ways of tackling it. Omani mobile operator Nawras is just one operator that is taking the issue seriously. The company filters MMS passing through its network, and has already detected and protected its users from an attack..

There was an attack in this region last year called CommWarriorMMS – the MMSC managed to protect against that. What was happening was that people were catching it on their Bluetooth. I think in the future we’ve got to watch out for it in the same way as the fixed internet.

A lot of people leave their Bluetooth on, a lot of people are quizzical about who’s available to chat. If you’re unaware, it’s very easy just to accept a file and then you find it’s a problem for your device. So people should be very aware and only accept files from other Bluetooth users whom they know.

Create  awareness

While mobile viruses are a worldwide problem, the Middle East is particularly at risk. The region has mobile penetration rates that exceed many other parts of the world, while awareness of the problem is less. For companies such as McAfee, a big part of the challenge is raising awareness.

It is not easy, the region has not been hit by anything major yet and often people don’t react until the certain attacks have occurred. It’s like insurance – people don’t see the need to invest until after the disaster happens.

It is important that mobile users, operators, handset manufacturers, vendors and security companies, work together to combat the threat posed by mobile viruses. Everyone should be speaking to the mobile users and explaining to them what the risks are.

A lot of PCs come out of the box with protection on them, but this is not the case with most mobile phones, so there are a lot of things the manufacturers and operators can do in order to raise awareness.

How do you catch a virus writer?

Although the Internet allows computer viruses to spread quickly, it also helps to catch the authors.

Each computer connected to the Internet has an address, similar to a phone number. This is called an IP address and looks like this: 128.5.10.64. Every email you send is marked with your IP address and this information is hard to remove.

Hunting hackers 

Sophisticated virus authors would be able to cover their tracks to some degree, but there is usually some way to track them down.

Virus writer can be one among the Hackers, crackers and script kiddies

Hackers: people who try to find security flaws in corporate computer programs. Most hackers don’t aim to cause problems, but they might send an anonymous email to the person in charge warning them of their security problem. Amongst other hackers, there is much honour to be gained by those who can ‘crack the uncrackable’ programs

Crackers: unlike hackers, crackers are less sophisticated. They like to break into people’s websites and replace their corporate homepage either with pornographic images or hoax messages

Script kiddies: young virus pirates, who copy old computer viruses and modify them. Often they don’t work. If they do, they are seldom as dangerous as the originals and can be easily destroyed.

Do This If You Get A Virus

The virus scanner will always try to rescue any files it can. There are some viruses that don’t destroy files, instead they ‘corrupt’ them so they cannot be used. Good virus scanners can often reverse this.

If the scanner cannot repair a file, it will place it in a secure area so you can’t run it by accident. Then you can send the virus to an anti-virus company. If it is a new one they will add it to their database and at least you will be able to help prevent other people catching it.

If you don’t yet have a virus scanner but think you might have a virus then try using an online virus scanner. These pieces of software work by sending you a small program over the internet. From there you can find out if you really do have a virus. If you do then now is the time to purchase some anti-virus software.

Conclusion

“This isn’t a huge problem today, but it’s right to think about it now so we can combat it in the future. We must be very careful going forward. I can foresee that we will be updating our mobile handsets in future in the same way that we update our desktops and laptops with protection.