Can a mobile phone get a virus?

Question

When somebody puts their sim card in your phone

Answer 1

A mobile virus is an electronic virus that targets mobile phones or wireless-enabled PDAs.

As wireless phone and PDA networks become more numerous and more complex, it has become more difficult to secure them against electronic attacks in the form of viruses or other malicious software (also known as malware).


[edit] History
The first instance of a mobile virus occurred in August 2004 when it was discovered that a company called Ojam had engineered an anti-piracy Trojan virus in older versions of their mobile phone game Mosquito. This virus sent SMS text messages to the company without the user's knowledge. This virus was removed from more recent versions of the game; however it still exists on older, unlicensed versions. These older versions may still be distributed on file-sharing networks and free software download web sites.

In July 2004, computer scientists released a proof-of-concept mobile virus named Cabir. This virus replicates itself on Bluetooth wireless networks, but is completely harmless.

In March 2005 it was reported that a computer worm called Commwarrior-A has been infecting Symbian series 60 mobile phones. This worm replicates itself through the phone's Multimedia Messaging System (MMS). It sends copies of itself to other phone owners listed in the phone user's address book. Although the worm is not considered harmful, experts agree that it heralds a new age of electronic attacks on mobile phones.

Common mobile viruses

Cabir: Infects mobile phones running on Symbian OS. When a phone is infected, the message 'Caribe' is displayed on the phone's display and is displayed every time the phone is turned on. The worm then attempts to spread to other phones in the area using wireless Bluetooth signals

Duts: A parasitic file infector virus and is the first known virus for the PocketPC platform. It attempts to infect all EXE files in the current directory (infects files that are bigger than 4096 bytes)

Skulls: A trojan horse piece of code. Once downloaded, the virus, called Skulls, replaces all phone desktop icons with images of a skull. It also renders all phone applications, including SMSes and MMSes useless

Comwar: First worm to use MMS messages in order to spread to other devices. Can spread through Bluetooth too. It infects devices running under OS Symbian Series 60. The executable worm file once launched hunts for accessible Bluetooth devices and sends the infected files under a random name to various devices.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Yes, a mobile phone can get a virus. There are currently abour 350 malware programs for Symbian phones (although most of them are Trojan horses and not viruses), one virus and one backdoor for Windows Mobile, and 1 virus and 4 Trojan horses for PalmOS. Of those, only the Symbian viruses are really in-the-wild - mostly the viruses from the Cabir and CommWarrior families.

No, a mobile phone cannot get a virus by inserting a SIM card in it - because the SIM card does not contain executable data. (Maybe it's possible to crash some phones by exploiting vulnerabilities in their Contacts application with a specially crafted contact on the card - but that's purely hypothetical; it has never been done.)

However, it is definitely possible to infect the phone with a virus by inserting an MMC card in it! In fact, one of the CommWarrior variants (CommWarrior.Q, I think), explicitly uses this attack vector (besides Bluetooth and MMS).

Answer 4

Yes mobile phones can get viruses, either through downloads or viruses through attachments. You can also buy virus checkers for mobile phones, such as F-Prot for Symbian phones

Answer 5

I have a first gen. Samsung Galaxy with AT&T. communicate, textual content, files. My settlement (relations plan with 2 phones) is up in very few months. even as that is up, i will have AT&T liberate the phones. Then, i will visit T-cellular's pay-as-you-go plan so i do not ought to pay for 2 files plans (wireless is everywhere.) Then i will setup and installation Google Voice (loose calls and texts to everywhere contained in the U. S. and Canada) to artwork on both cellular gadgets and my Ooma (VoIP landline that costs $4 a year.) After that, I in basic terms ought to pay for calls and texts made on the cellphones even as outdoors the type of any accessible wireless networks. i will save over $a million,000 a year doing this.

Answer 6

Yes. It is very possible, especially if you download applets (games, programs, etc.) or use a removable memory card with the original phone the SIM card came from.... Highly unlikely but possible.

Answer 7

on not the sim card but there are virus for phones threw bluetooth

Answer 8

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Answer 9

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