Viruses/Worms News

Text message worm spreading through China

Monday, February 23, 2009

A new worm is targeting Nokia's Symbian OS through a text message that is spreading in China.

The SymbOS/Yxes.A!worm, also known as Sexy View, spreads through smartphones that run Nokia S60 3rd Edition and appears to be confined to China, SCMagazineus.com reports.

Prior to this worm, malicious links on mobile devices usually spread through multimedia messaging service (MMS) messages through attachments, according to the article. However, this is the first time security officials have seen malware through short message service (SMS) and seems to be more effective.

Infected phones send SMS messages with a malicious link to the phone numbers stored in the device, security officials told the news provider. Phones with internet browsing capabilities can click on the link, which will download a copy of the worm onto the machine. The worm also gathers the phone's serial and subscription number.

The worm also employs the highly successful tactic of social engineering, which has helped cybercriminals dupe users by conducting phishing attacks and malware downloads through known contacts of the victim.

Some security officials say this could be the beginning and that a massive mobile device botnet may be on the horizon.