Wednesday, June 16, 2004

First cellphone virus?
The BBC reports the first mobile phone virus is now an official reality. When the infected file is launched the mobile phone's screen displays the word "Caribe". Every time the mobile phone is turned on, the worm will launch itself and scan the area for other phones to infect, sending a copy of itself to any it finds. Because the worm requires Bluetooth technology to travel, it is geographically constrained to a radius of about 30 meters (about 90 feet to those of us on the east side of the pond) so it's dependent on someone having Bluetooth turned on within that range. As a final blow to its progress, any unsuspecting phone user in the vicinity would have to accept the virus which would be preceded by a warning that the source of the file is unknown. Well, if folk open unknown e-mail attachments, anything is possible. However, anti-virus firm F-Secure was among a handful of security companies to receive the virus. Smart...

Thanks to Guy for the tip!
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