First SMS Worm Detected to Infect Smartphones

Internet security vendor, F-Secure says that it has detected the first known SMS based worm for mobile phones. In its quarterly update on the security issues faced by computer and smartphone users, the company noted that the biggest malware story of 2009 so far has been the Conficker (aka Downadup) worm. It is a classic worm exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, of the type that has not been seen in the past few years.

However, the first quarter was also historical as it saw the birth of the first SMS worm, Sexy View, designed for smartphones.

Sexy View, like Facebook virus, Koobface, is a social engineering worm which uses the contacts stored on your smartphone to spread. It sends a text message to your contacts telling them to check out some hot pictures and offers a link to a website.

Your contacts follow the URL because it came from you. They are asked to install an application, which now sends the worm to all their contacts. The worm sends the information about the phone to its makers who then use this information to send SMS spam.

"Sexy View is important in many ways," Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's Chief Research Officer said. "It is the first text message worm ever. It's also the first mobile phone worm that circumvents the signature checks that are meant to secure the latest smartphones. And the motive behind it seems to be to collect information for mobile phone spamming purposes. Mobile phone spam is already a big problem in some parts of the world - eventually it will be an issue everywhere."

For the full F-Secure IT security threat summary go to www.f-secure.com/2009/

Posted to the site on 14th April 2009