Mobile Viruses: A Looming Threat?

The possibility of spreading a virus to millions of mobile devices is becoming a reality as devices become less 'dumb'. What hacker could resist such a temptation. Operators should take preventative measures now or face subscriber anger in the future.

As mobile devices become more sophisticated and new technologies facilitate constant network connections, the user experience of 'mobile Internet' will become much more acceptable. But always-on handsets incorporating processing power are also more attractive to hackers and those seeking to cause damage to operators or users.

In an era where mobile devices may carry virtual currency as well as important corporate or personal information, the threat from viruses cannot be ignored. A pan-European survey on next generation mobile services published by Siemens in January found that a large percentage of consumers have serious reservations about the security of a wireless interface ­ the emergence of mobile hacking would simply increase that negative sentiment.

There is a great deal of confusion surrounding the current threat to mobile phone security as recent reporting of 'mobile viruses' demonstrated. The levels of risk and the possible consequences are important.

"There were reports last June of a virus that went out over the Telefonica network in Spain. Unfortunately, those reports were misleading randomly selected mobile phone users received unsolicited SMS messages infected with a PC virus, rather than a virus infecting their phone. There were also reports of a virus on the Palm platform but this was in fact a crude Trojan."

There are three main levels of threat. A Trojan could be described as a program that does something unexpected, so if you had received a copy of the Palm Trojan and loaded it onto your device it would have erased your data, but that it the only way it could have affected the device. A Trojan needs to be installed and executed by an unsuspecting user in order for it to be effective.

A virus is a more serious threat. It can replicate itself from program-to-program or document-to-document, although it still requires the recipient to pass it on, most often via e-mail. At the top of the danger scale is the worm. Unlike the virus it does not require any user interaction after infection as it spreads automatically, attacking all members of a network or the contacts listed in an address book.