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| Worlds first bluetooth phone virus |
| Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at 11:14 by Laurence Norah |
We've reported before on the security risks posed by bluetooth on mobile phones, and it seems that our fears have been confirmed as some bright spark has finally worked out how to spread a virus between phones using bluetooth.
Codenamed Cabir by Anti-Virus company Kapersky Labs, the mobile virus is not reported to have actually caused any damage so far. Rather, it appears to be more of a proof of concept than anything else. The virus only infects phones which are running the Symbian Operating System, and if infected a phones screen will display the text "Caribe". The virus software loads every time the phone starts, and scans nearby phone devices using bluetooth to find other susceptible devices. If it finds one it will infect them.
This is not a particularly dangerous virus, with the only potential issue being a reduced battery life due to heavy usage of the bluetooth transceiver. It is however a worrying discovery, as no doubt more malicious phone viruses will start to appear.
The current solution is to make sure bluetooth is disabled on your phone when you are not using it. Anti-virus software for mobile phones is somewhat thin on the ground, with vendors apparently pushing more functionality rather than security on these devices. Hopefully this will come as a wake up call to phone and software developers, particularly as phones move away from being simple communications devices, and more towards being always on PDA devices with much of the functionality previously only available on much larger devices.
We'll have to wait and see, and as always, we'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: Sophos release details on Cabir virus
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| I like the way the companies are labelig this as a trivial virus.
Like you say it is indeed a proof of concept, and that alone is frightening enough.
Consider the busy streets of London, and its many many mobile phone users, many of which are 'trend' users like business men who simply must have the latest mobile phone on the market. Down to students, with the same in mind.
Then lastly consider the children/teenagers, and me ( :P ) who have the new generation of gaming phones like the N-Gage and the newer QD version. All of whom use their mobile phone ( I use that term loosely) to play games via the Bluetooth connectivity.
This implies Hyoooooj potential as far as infection rate is concerned.
I fear the day they actually find a use for this type of virus. Altough i can think of many, i dont intend planting those seeds of thought, from which sprouts a weed we will hate and strive to remove forever more... |
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| weel all i can say is the government should start to prevent this Varibe virus!!! |
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| does anyone can tell me how i can remove this caribe from my phone? |
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| Please see: http://itvibe.com/default.aspx?NewsID=2658 |
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| i recently received a bluetooth message and it gave me an option to install what had been sent,i installed it thinking it would just be a video message but when i looked what it was it was something called "caribe"i tried to delete the item but it wouldnt delate and still wont,im just wondering whether it will have any bad effects on my phone,please email me back,on s318757@student.oasfc.ac.uk |
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| I HAVE A FREAKING BLUETOOTH .sis VIRUS ON MY FREAKING PHONE! HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET RID OF IT. |
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| I'm glad I don't have bluetooth.
I am still healthy :) |
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| if the kapersky labs invent the virus and test it how come they didnt make an antivirus fo these that is so stupid coz they want to be known !!!! |
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