You are here: UK Essays » Custom Essays » Mobile Phone Virus

Free Essays - Essays

Mobile Phone Virus

The mobile phone industry had developed a lot of way for community to communicate among each other. Through out all the ways of communicating, hackers had built virus to attack mobile phone. This paper will attempt to explain and talk about types of virus that attack, ways and symptoms when virus attacks our mobile virus.

In the research, I will talk about mobile phone technology, history of mobile phone, technology of mobile phone, history of mobile phone virus, types of virus that attach mobile phone, how the virus attack mobile phone, how to prevent the virus attach our mobile phone. Beside that we will give some tips and solution on how to deal with when our mobile phone attack by virus.

Communication is the way of express ourselves, sending information to each other, make the world a better place and also war. How human communicate? Human communicate by hand sign, speak by mouth, sing song to other, sending mail, call by phone, sending e-mail, send SMS (Short Massage System), MMS (Multimedia Massage System), 3G technology and lots more way of communicate. From the example given above had already shown us how important are communicate.

Cellular networks were first introduced in the early to mid of 1980sit is 1G generation.2G phone systems were characterized by digital circuit switched transmission and the introduction of advanced and fast phone to network signaling. Not long after the introduction of 2G networks, projects began to develop 3G systems. Inevitably there were many different standards with different contender pushing their own technologies. 3G system has been standardized in the IMT-2000 standardization processing.

With the advance of miniaturization, currently the vast majority of mobile phones are handheld. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, a mobile phone can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email/a>, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. These provide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the promised high data rates or full range of multimedia services.

The first mobile virus occurred in August 2004 when it was discovered that a company called Ojam had engineered an anti-piracy Trojan virus in older versions of their mobile phone game Mosquito. This virus sent SMS text messages to the company without the user's knowledge. In July 2004, computer scientists released a proof-of-concept mobile virus named Cabir. This virus replicates itself on Bluetooth wireless networks, but is completely harmless.

In March 2005 it was reported that a computer worm called Commwarrior-A has been infecting Symbian series 60 mobile phones. This worm replicates itself through the phone's Multimedia Messaging System (MMS). It sends copies of itself to other phone owners listed in the phone user's address book. Although the worm is not considered harmful, experts agree that it heralds a new age of electronic attacks on mobile phones. Other then those virus.

The most Common mobile viruses are Cabir will Infects mobile phones running on Symbian OS. When a phone is infected, the message 'Caribe' is displayed on the phone's display and is displayed every time the phone is turned on. The worm then attempts to spread to other phones in the area using wireless Bluetooth signals

Lasco.A is a worm that only affects cellular phones that use the operating system Symbian. It aims Nokia series 60 cell phones, but other devices based in the same software could also be affected. It very similar to the worm called Cabir.A. Their main difference lies in the fact that, in addition to spread via Bluetooth, Lasco.A also inserts itself in all the SIS files it finds in the affected phone. SIS files are installers for phone applications, so that when a user runs a modified installer, it also installs this worm.

Duts is a parasitic file infector virus and is the first known virus for the PocketPC platform. It attempts to infect all EXE files in the current directory (infects files that are bigger than 4096 bytes)

Skulls is a trojan horse piece of code. Once downloaded, the virus, called Skulls, replaces all phone desktop icons with images of a skull. It also renders all phone applications, including SMSes and MMSes useless. Skulls pretends to be a visual theme for Nokia 7610 smartphones. Various versions of the Trojan turn application icons into a skull graphic and mismatch icon labels in order to disable all applications except voice calling. Later versions only placed a skull in the background of the phone's screen.

Comwar is the first worm to use MMS messages in order to spread to other devices. Can spread through Bluetooth too. It infects devices running under OS Symbian Series 60. The executable worm file once launched hunts for accessible Bluetooth devices and sends the infected files under a random name to various devices.

Dampig pretends to be a crack for version 3.2 of the FSCaller application. The Dampig Trojan disables some system applications and third-party file managers and installs several variants of Cabir worm on the phone. This Trojan disables Bluetooth UI, system file manager, messaging applications and phone book on the infected hand-held. Also, Dampig will corrupt the uninstall information in the system installer so that it cannot be uninstalled without being disinfected first.

Locknut (Gavno) is another malicious .SIS file that pretends to be a patch for Symbian Series 60 mobile phones. It disables the phone so that it can only be disinfected with a special disinfection tool. When installed, Locknet.B crashes an important system component, preventing any program from being launched. It also copies Cabir.V to the phone, but since Locknut.B prevents it, too, from being launched, it causes no immediate harm. It was renamed from Gavno because that word is explicit in some Eastern European countries.

Qdial Dial sends an SMS message to specific premium rate numbers and can charge affected users for the sent messages. Apparently, the affected numbers are from the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland regions only.

Velasco is the velasco.sis file will not arrive automatically to the target device, so a user needs to answer yes to the transfer question while the infected device is still in range. When the Lasco.A worm is activated, it will start looking for other Bluetooth devices and starts sending infected velasco.sis files to the first device it finds. After the first target phone is out of range, Lasco. A will continue searching and infecting other phones. Keeping a phone's Bluetooth visibility setting in "hidden" will prevent infection.

Hoax is an attempt to deceive, to make the public believe into a strange idea, generally involving a material object which should conduct to illicit financial or material gain, or appealing to religious beliefs and charity, or just as a practical joke. Many hoaxes aim to ridicule and satirize, mocking at the public's credulity.

They have been using the media since their early times, but there is no match for the IT environment and the limitless possibilities it offers them to spread. It usually consists of an email message warning recipients about a new and terribly destructive virus. The hoax may deceive the user into deleting some files on the system, under the false pretence of eliminating the virus, thus causing real damage to the user. Sometimes it happens that a hoax inspires the coming up of a real virus threat.

Most news today about the source code for a Symbian based virus which spreads over Bluetooth. It's availability is expected to make the virus more common among Smart phone users. Virus writers are trying to achieve to frustrating smart phone users Beside that, virus do attack on personal computer to mobile phones.

Virus releases usually exploit gaping vulnerabilities in the OS (Operation System), but when it comes to infecting a Symbian Smart phone, the success of an infection attempt depends entirely on the user; if the OS did any more to stop the virus installing itself, it would render the Smart phone locked down.

Some mobile viruses that infect Smart phones, cell phones, and handheld PCs they spread in the same way as traditional computer viruses, namely when you download programs or files that are already infected. In the case of mobile phones, that might mean downloading photos, video clips, ring tones, cell phone themes, or other programs.

Usually we are not aware of any viruses that can be transferred from your laptop or from your desktop to your Windows Mobile-based device. Other mobile viruses can spread like human viruses do by close contact in the presence of the right host. Some cell phones are equipped with Bluetooth, a technology that allows you to transfer data between different devices, such as sending photos from your cell phone to your printer or transferring addresses stored on your Windows Mobile device to your laptop.

This handy technology comes with a few risks if we don't use it correctly. If you have Bluetooth enabled on your mobile device and in "discoverable mode" and you come within 30 feet of another infected device that also has Bluetooth enabled and is running the same operating system as your mobile device, then you might get infected.

There are few ways to protect our mobile phones from the virus attack. Through the survey, many mobile phones users don’t know how to prevent their mobile phones from virus attack. Below are few steps to follow in order to protect your mobile phone from virus:

Only download or accept programs and content (including photos, video clips, ring tones, mobile device themes, and games) from a source you trust. Our recommendations for surfing and downloading more safely when using your personal computer also applies when you surf the Web, send e-mail, or download programs using a mobile device. If you don't know whom an attachment is from or if you weren't expecting it, your best bet is not to open it or download it at all.

Keep your Bluetooth switched off. Windows viruses come over the internet but the current bunch of variations on the cabir virus comes over Bluetooth. You can use software such as Extended Profiles from PsiLoc to turn your Bluetooth on and off according to the time of day, so maybe you can use that to only have Bluetooth active when you're driving, for instance. If you don't want to keep your Bluetooth off, make sure you can't be discovered. You can do this in the Bluetooth settings by changing 'My Phone's Visibility' to Hidden.

If you want to remain visible, or discoverable, then don't accept messages from strangers. If you're on the train and your phone tells you that there's an incoming connection, reject it every time. Don't go looking for the evil offender who cunningly tried to send it to you, however, since the chances are that they don't know what their phone is doing.

If, you want to receive a file from a stranger then check the file before opening it. If the name of the file ends with .sis, just delete it away. The chances of a stranger sending you an innocent application at random are very slim and so if they've sent you an installer (which a .sis file is), it probably a virus.

If you've accidentally opened the file, just cancel the install when you're warned about it's security. Symbian Smart phones are very careful about security and will hold your hand all the way through an install process for new software. The only thing it won't do is force you to not install it. Nothing can be installed onto your Smart phone without your permission so, unless you're in the process of installing some software, rejects everything that tries to install.

Anti-virus is a utility that searches a hard disk for viruses and removes any that are found. Most antivirus programs do the same function and same motive. That is help user to protect their Personal Computer (PC), laptop or Mobile Phone. The feature are include auto-update feature that enables the program to download profiles of new viruses so that it can check for the new viruses as soon as they are discovered.

User also can send any new found virus to their respective antivirus company to let them solve the problem for the user. Beside that, antivirus also can help user to scan their Personal Computer (PC), laptop or Mobile Phone. It also allow user to scan their removable drive and scan object. After the entire scan user can view quarantine result and view back up. Finally, it can generate report to let user view the scan result report.

Beside the antivirus that can protect our Personal Computer (PC), laptop or Mobile Phone from the attack of virus. Firewall is designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both.

Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the internet, especially intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria. A firewall is considered a first line of defense in protecting private information. For greater security, data can be encrypted.

How antivirus and firewall can protect our Personal Computer (PC), laptop or Mobile Phone from the attack of the virus. Now we will discuss on if the mobile phone system include the firewall system called mobile firewall how would it be. Will it be more weakness or more advantage to the mobile phone user?

The main idea of the Mobile Firewall is to let the mobile phones a better defend system to face viruses attack. Most mobile phone get affected by virus are from Bluetooth. So the mechanism of this Mobile Firewall is built a firewall system before the base band and the link control layer.

The base band and link control layer enables the physical RF link between Bluetooth units forming a Pico net. As the Bluetooth RF system is a Frequency-Hopping-Spread-Spectrum system in which packets are transmitted in defined time slots on defined frequencies, this layer uses inquiry and paging procedures to synchronize the transmission hopping frequency and clock of different Bluetooth devices.

It provides two different kind of physical links with their corresponding baseband packets, Synchronous Connection-Oriented (SCO) and Asynchronous Connectionless (ACL) which can be transmitted in a multiplexing manner on the same RF link. ACL packets are used for data only, while the SCO packet can contain audio only or a combination of audio and data.

All audio and data packets can be provided with different levels of FEC or CRC error correction and can be encrypted. Furthermore, the different data types, including link management and control messages, are each allocated a special channel. So a Firewall system is install before those layer, it will help the mobile phones to have a batter defend against virus.

The function of the firewall will help user to scan the data before entering and send out through the mobile phones. This mobile firewall works same as the firewall that install at personal computer or laptop. The firewall work as the front line defender against virus attack and antivirus work as second defender against the virus attack.

In conclusion, mobile phone had become parts of our daily life. It had become very important to us for communicating. Virus attack on our mobile phone had become very common now a day. It may attack our mobile phone in many ways. Example, viruses come from SMS, MMS, GPRS, Infra-red, WAP, Bluetooth, 3G and etc. So a better protection for our mobile phones is needed.

This paper is discussing about how to have a better protection for our mobile phones. As then solution, we had proposed a mobile firewall system as the front line defend against the virus attack. As the conclusion, mobile phones had brought us so many benefits to our daily life. So we had to protect our mobile phones and anti all the dirty tactics from the hackers from attacking our mobile phones. So a better and stronger defend system against all their attack are needed.

All of the essays in the free essays section were written by students and then submitted to us to display and help others. Thanks to all the students who have submitted their essays to us. You should not hand in our essays as your own. We do not condone plagiarism! If you need custom essay help, then have a look at our essay writing services.

Sign up and be the first to receive our latest offers: