Virus strikes cellphones

2005-06-27 07:23

Johannesburg - The days of cellphones escaping the scourge of viruses are probably numbered.

Although viruses for cellphones existed only in laboratories until recently, the Comwarrior virus has found its way to cellphones worldwide, including in South Africa.

This virus was written for the Symbian operating system. Several manufacturers of cellphones use this operating system. Nokia in particular makes extensive use of Symbian and most of its sophisticated phones use this system.

Comwarrior spreads through Bluetooth connections or via MMS messages. Bluetooth is a short-range radio connection used to, among other things, link cellphones to cordless receivers.

The virus sends itself to other phones via Bluetooth. The receiver will then see a message asking whether Comwarrior should be installed.

If the user answer "yes", the virus installs itself and immediately starts duplicating through MMS messages to people who's numbers appear in the infected phone's phonebook.

The virus also uses the Bluetooth connection to start looking for other phones in the vicinity.

The MMS messages are sent in a number of guises. It generally claims that the MMS contains support programmes, a game, ringtone or pornography.

Once the virus is installed on your phone, it keeps sending the messages and this can run up a hefty account.

Cellphone users should be on the lookout for messages on their phones indicating that the phone is sending a message via GPRS even though the user did not generate the message.

Vodacom said the virus is not common at present. Cellphone networks can receive it at relay points and block it.

People whose cellphones are infected can visit any client centre to have the virus removed, Dot Field, a Vodacom spokesperson, said.

Antivirus software for Symbian can be downloaded from www.f-secure.com. The software is free for a 30-day trial period after which it must be bought.

Aime Peters of anti-virus group Symantec said they believe the solution to the problem is to build preventative software into cellphones.

Tania Steenkamp, spokesperson for Nokia South Africa, said on Sunday that the company was monitoring the situation.

Vodacom and Symantec warned that people should not install unknown programmes on their phones.

- Sake