Yesterday, I came across an article on BBC News on the topic of mobile cyber-crime. (By “came across”, I really mean that a dozen people emailed, IM’ed or Twittered the link to me. Thanks everyone… I think?) It’s therefore my duty to write (or pontificate) on the topic.

Among viruses for mobiles what has been growing are trojans that exploit mobile payment systems such as premium rate SMS. One instructive instance of such a malicious program is known as Viver. This was discovered in May 2007 and hides its malicious code inside three fake applications. Installing any one of those bogus applications on a Symbian phone starts that handset sending costly premium rate SMS messages to an international number. Each SMS message costs about $7 (£3.50).

Now, I have a rather unforgiving attitude when I hear things like this; In the same way I rarely consider it “bad luck” when someone ends up with a computer virus, I feel it’s the device owner’s responsibility to make an educated decision on whether or not to download an application. Most people can’t be bothered to use mobile apps, so take-up of apps is low to start off with.

Secondly, it’s probably the only context where I’ll say this, but thankfully the mobile world is so fragmented that there is no one-size-fits-all virus which will infect all phone types in the same way and cause a worldwide outbreak.

To the best of my knowledge, operators use complex fraud detection systems to flag up unusual mobile use, so I’d like to think that, God forbid, there should be an epidemic of mobile viruses, these could be nipped in the bud by the operator’s watchful eye. Unfortunately, I’m not so convinced that when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and entire departments have their collective foot firmly inserted into the mouth, I should trust operators to react swiftly to the problem.

So I suppose it makes this post a plea to all mobile users to be smart about their phone use. The mobile web is an infinitely safer place than the desktop web as far as likelihood of picking up something nasty, but a little bit of common sense goes a long way no matter where you are. You wouldn’t eat an apple if it looked rotten, so why grab an application for your phone from a dodgy-looking mobile website?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am and is filed under Mobile devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.