The birth of the ‘zombie’ phone?

smsSymantec security response have noted and written on a SMS based worm that promises the recipient ‘sexy’ pictures. The malware is  a variant of a threat originally identified as SymbOS.Exy. The threat works hard to stealth itself onto the ‘phone, and as such, has also a number of defence mechanisms to ensure that the threat continues to run.

The original SymbOS.Exy, was for the most part targeting mobile phone users in China. The new variant of the threat is now also being distributed in English. What this threat currently does is gather  information from the ‘phone and send it to predetermined addresses in addition to spamming other phones via SMS. Given the ability of the threat to propagate effectively and also for it to ‘dial home’ for further instructions, it has led to some speculation as to whether this lays the foundation for the birth of the SMS Botnet?

July 13, 2009 | Filed Under Security 

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