subject: Cabir mobile worm gives track fans the run around posted: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:40:15 +0100
[I think this is amazing. Cabir is a bluetooth-based entity and thus
is limited by the range of the bluetooth signal. Which means if
people stay a certain distance apart from each other, the potential
for an "epidemic" of this proximity-dependent worm is small. But if
a crowd of people gather, the worm can go wild. lol.. awesome
demonstration of the future perils we face. And all kinds of
biological metaphors. Crazy stuff, these machines ARE dumb, but when
they get mixed with semi-intelligent lifeforms such humans, they take
on a life of their own, nonetheless! - Stu]
Cabir mobile worm gives track fans the run around
By John Leyden
Published Friday 12th August 2005 11:54 GMT
Phone-mad Finns are coping with a minor outbreak of the Cabir mobile
virus at the Athletic's World Championship in Helsinki this week.
Cabir, which infects smartphones running Symbian Series 60 using
Bluetooth short-range radio communication technology to spread, is
flourishing in the packed stadium area. The version of Cabir
spreading drains the power of the infected phones as it tries to
propagate but is otherwise relatively harmless.
"At most we are speaking about dozens of infections, but during a
short period and in one spot this is a huge number," Jarmo Koski, a
security official at telecoms firm TeliaSonera, told Reuters.
Prospective victims need to accept a download to get hit by Cabir and
security researchers reckon many handsets get infected simply because
users get fed up with being prompted to allow a connection. Moving
away from an infected phone is an effective defence if a malign
connection is attempted in, for example, a bar but is harder to apply
when you're in a crowded stadium where perhaps the best approach is
to turn off Bluetooth on potentially vulnerable phones.
"This [Cabir spreading] happens easily when you gather tens of
thousands of people from all over to world to a very small area. In
fact, to some extent the same thing was happening during the Live 8
concerts earlier this summer," said Mikko Hyppönen, director of anti-
virus research at Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure, in a posting on
the firm's blog. "We now have staff at the stadium assisting visitors
in cleaning out affected phones."
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* Origin: [adminz] tech, security, support (192:168/0.2)
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