Mobile Virus ‘MMS Bomber’ Hitting China

I thought I would throw this up for some weekend reading material. It was a press release that Kristofer sent us and I thought it might be of some interest to some of our readers even though it seems to be localized in China. So read on for more information on this Mobile Virus:

Recently a new mobile virus named "MMS Bomber" has run rampant in China, and millions of Chinese mobile phones were impacted, reported Beijing Business News. The National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China has alerted mobile users that the targets of the virus are mobile devices with S60 3rd OS, mostly Nokia and Samsung smart-phones.

The virus is disguised as an application; once installed, the virus will automatically connect to the internet and send MMS containing a malicious URL to random mobile phone numbers without the user’s awareness, and result in finance losses to mobile users.

The virus was first captured by the Mobile Security Center of NetQin Mobile Inc., a leading mobile security service provider, in early February. The company’s statistic shows that at least 100,000 mobile phones were infected up to now. It’s notable that the virus has defence mechanisms. Once infected, the virus will disable the system management program on the mobile phone, and mobile users will not be able to uninstall the virus, says Dr. Zou Shihong, Chief Scientist of NetQin. NetQin has now launched the latest Mobile Anti-virus 3.2 multi-language version for S60 3rd OS, which can scan and remove the virus successfully. What mobile users need to do is to download the NetQin Mobile Anti-virus 3.2, install and update to the latest virus database to get protected.

Gartner reports smart-phones represented 14 percent of total mobile device sales in 2009, and are predicted to reach 38 percent by 2013; meanwhile, the mobile application market will reach $17.5 billion by 2012. By then, the number of mobile application downloads will have also grown to nearly 50 billion from just over 7 billion in 2009, according to Chetan Sharma Consulting latest report. The explosive growth of mobile technology and applications has made mobile devices an enticing target for hackers and mobile security threats. As more mobile devices are used to store personal and professional information, the more they are at risk for security threats.