First cell phone virus in U.S.

[Esau]

http://www.newsday.com/technology/

First cell phone virus in U.S.

BY RICHARD J. DALTON JR.

STAFF WRITER

February 22, 2005

A California store recently offered a free -- although unwanted -- giveaway: The first known American occurrence of a slowly spreading cell-phone virus.

The Cabir virus was spotted on a cell phone in a Santa Monica store, according to F-Secure, a Finnish security company.

The virus could wirelessly infect nearby phones. Susceptible devices are certain smartphones, a combination of a handheld computer and cell phone. The phones must have Bluetooth, wireless data transfer.

The Cabir cyberpest merely drains cell phone batteries, but its spread demonstrates that cell phones could be the next frontier for security breaches.

"It's not the end of the world, but it does show us how more dangerous viruses or malicious viruses could spread, especially as the number of smartphones increases," said Marie Clark, a representative for F-Secure.

A hacker called Vallez, part of a group called 29A Labs, claimed responsibility for Cabir. "Our goal is to create new, unique, interesting viruses," the group says on its Web site.

Symbian, a company whose cell phone operating system is susceptible, said Vallez's motive was likely to gain kudos.

"This is just a new place where you have to be smart, and you have to protect yourself," said Kari Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the Bluetooth special interest group.

Recipients would have to manually accept the infected file when a message appears on the phone's screen. The phone would then display text Caribe-VZ/29A, identifying the author's intended name for the virus, the author's initials and the hacker group.

Anti-virus companies, which avoid using the author's proposed name for the virus, named it Cabir.

There's good news: So far it appears the worm hasn't penetrated the Big Apple.