Do the recent reports of celebrity cell phone hackings have you worried you might be next? As this ScienCentral News video explains, as cell phones get smarter, the chance of infection gets larger.
Dial "V" for Virus
In a research laboratory in Helsinki, Finland, two scientists enter a small, protected room. After shutting themselves in with an oversized handle, a red light flashes to warn of the danger inside. While it may sound like these researchers are working with dangerous viruses like in the 1995 movie "Outbreak," these scientists are investigating viruses that threaten your cell phone.
They need heightened security for testing because phone viruses can spread even without a call being made. Mikko Hypponen, chief researcher at F-Secure Corporation, says that hackers have written more than 300 viruses for computer-like smartphones, or phones that can download applications.
The first cell phone virus was created in 2004, named Cabir. While it spread rapidly worldwide, the virus itself caused little damage to infected phones. "The only side effect in addition of spreading," Hypponen says, "was that it emptied your battery very quickly." The virus drains the battery because it constantly looks for new host phones using Bluetooth technology, the most popular route for cell phone viruses today.
Bluetooth is a radio signal that can transmit information to nearby phones. Cabir seizes the Bluetooth machinery of a phone, searches for other phones with an open Bluetooth connection, and asks to be downloaded onto the new phone. Unsuspecting cell phone users downloading the program turn their phone into a new virus factory.
Throughout the years, nastier viruses have been developed. "We've seen some destructive viruses which will prevent you from using your phone. Some of them delete your phonebook. Some of them prevent your phone from starting at all," Hypponen says.
The threat could be more costly than computer viruses, since cell phones have a built-in way of billing the user. "Some examples of cell phone viruses are actually trying to create monetary loss by sending text messages to expensive numbers," he says. The criminals who own these foreign phone numbers simply have to wait until users pay their monthly bill.
Hypponen says that the cell phone viruses known today mirror the beginnings of PC viruses ten years ago. "All these cell phone viruses are written by teens and kids and hobbyists for fun ... However, this will change." Hypponen says that in the late 1980s, some computer science experts thought that computer virus weren't going to be a threat. Today, there are more than 200,000 PC viruses, which cause billions of dollars of damage a year. "So if we don't play our cards right now, we might end up in a situation where we wind up with as big problems with cell phone viruses as we have today with PC viruses," he says.
One particularly dangerous cell phone virus the F-Secure team is studying is a type of trojan, or a virus that appears like a legitimate program but actually has destructive code contained inside. "These are programs that an attacker could install into somebody else's phone and use that program to monitor what he's doing with his phone," he says. "These programs could report every single phone call you receive, every single phone call you make ... as well as they could track and record every single conversation or text message you're sending from the phone."
Columbia University computer scientist Angelos Keromytis, who has worked with computer viruses and networking security for more than 10 years, is more cautious. "It is possible that the threat will never fully mature, but of course that's not an excuse or a reason to not take it seriously," he says.
Keromytis says that it's important to put this threat in perspective. "I would worry a lot more about my computer than my cell phone ... at this point," he says. Keromytis says that simply looking at 200,000 PC viruses out there versus the 300 cell phone viruses means that it's not yet time to panic about the cell phone virus threat. Also, he says, "smart" cell phones are not yet as ubiquitous as computers, "We're not quite there yet, in terms of the necessary infrastructure on the cell phone itself as well as on the cell phone network to make this a first-level threat."
Researchers at F-Secure track live computer viruses worldwide.
Both researchers agree that cell phone users can take simple steps now to prevent the spread of cell phone viruses -- mainly the same precautions for desktop users: you should be careful of what you download. Bluetooth cell phone viruses are the most common, and according to Hypponen in his November 2006 article in Scientific American magazine, users need to accept a Bluetooth virus onto their phone for it to become infected. Cell phone users receiving these may need to repeatedly say "no" to the installation, since the virus will repeatedly ask and prevent the phone's usage. But since this virus is dependent on radio signals, the user simply needs to move out of range from the infected phone sending out the virus.
Hypponen says that it's key that cell phone users know how to change their Bluetooth scanning mode, which can leave a phone vulnerable if it's set to "discoverable" mode. He says that people can also receive cell phone viruses by either downloading an infected program from the internet or switching infected memory cards between cell phones.
Hypponen says that there are also cell phone anti-virus solutions produced by McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and others, including Hypponen's company, F-Secure. If you suspect that your phone has a virus, you can download disinfection software from these companies or call your cell phone provider, possibly using another phone. The important part is not to panic about the threat, like one cell phone user who approached Hypponen at work. "People with a virus on their cell phone have come to our offices," he says, "waving their phone in the air, asking for help, which of course means that he actually brought a live infection on our premises."
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