Mobile spam to rise
Monday, January 5, 2009
The top 12 European mobile phone operators are welcoming the new year with expectations of a significant rise in spam messages to cell phones with the increased use of social networking sites.
However, according to a new survey, only 16 percent of those operators are considering a security system to block such messages from users' cell phones, SecurityPark.co.uk reports.
Despite the potential to lose customers due to unwanted text messages or mobile spam emails, some operators claim there isn't enough in their budget to implement a filtering system, according to the article. Others felt the problem wasn't big enough and said they would deal with it "at a later date."
This may prove to be a poor decision since it was recently reported that a denial-of-service (DOS) attack could be spread through a SMS message, killing the phone's ability to send and receive messages.
Deemed the "Curse of Silence" attack, it was revealed by researcher Tobias Engel, who showed how it takes advantage of a vulnerability in Nokia smartphones using versions 8 through 9.2 of the Symbian operating system.
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