Mobile virus threat

Just when I thought I was safe from virus threat and e-mail spam on my PC after spending lots of money and valuable time test-driving various Internet security products, I recently got hit by a virus attack, but now on my mobile phone! The first attack happened during a weekly Mancom meeting in our conference room. An MMS message just terminated on my mobile phone’s inbox from a colleague just seated beside me. I found it odd at first because in no way did I notice her lay a finger on her phone located only a foot away. So how could she manage to send the MMS? I checked my mobile and a message asked me if I wanted to install some tone manager file for free. I immediately asked her if she had sent it and as I expected, she did not. I proceeded to erase her message, but she discovered upon closer scrutiny of her mobile phone that it was randomly picking numbers from her address book and sending out MMS messages. Apparently, she had gotten a similar offer the previous night and actually installed the virus file thinking a friend had sent it. Yikes, her mobile was infected with a virus!

An hour later, I was seated back in my room located two offices down the hall. As I flipped open my laptop, I noticed a message from my Bluetooth application seeking permission for another party’s device wanting to connect with my laptop. Not recognizing the source, I declined the request. I’m a suspicious person by nature so I immediately exited my room and yelled out the requesting device’s name for its owner among my staffers to come forward. Seconds later, a colleague stood up and confessed that his Nokia 6600 unit had been acting up all morning and in fact, had infected other mobile units in the room via the same come-on I got earlier. Wow, talk about coincidental room-to-room threats!

This virus I learned was called the CommWarrior and it strictly affected Series 60 smartphones with Symbian OS 6.1 or newer operating systems. I was amazed that this virus had two alternative means to attack a mobile phone: via MMS and Bluetooth! Although removing the virus only required a file management tool, the glimpse of the future I just witnessed was frightening. This virus could herald a new age of malicious and fast-spreading cellphone threats. Now don’t go panicking and hurriedly searching for a security solution just yet. This threat still requires you to accept the installation of the virus before it’s installed on your mobile phone. So unless you’re very determined to install it and for that matter you probably work for an anti-virus software company and are trying to hype the dangers so that we all would rush out and buy your product, I believe the chances of this happening to you today are the same as being hit by a runaway train.

So relax and just be more prudent in accepting any type of file, even from known sources. I do see more smartphone threats coming in the future, but for now, your PC is probably under much greater risk of attack.

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Patrick R. Garcia is the managing director of Bidshot Wireless Services. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].