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| Sophos experts say that there is no need for
panic. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have urged
mobile phone owners not to panic following the discovery of the
first cellphone malware that tries to make money.
The Troj/Redbrow-A Trojan
horse (also known as RedBrowser) runs on certain phones with
support for J2ME (Java Micro Edition), posing as an application
which enables cellphones without WAP capability to have WAP access.
The Trojan, which is entirely in Russian language, sends a number
of premium rate SMS messages, costing the user money.
"Redbrow is a Trojan horse, which means it can't spread under
its own steam. This, combined with the fact that it is written
entirely in Russian and only works on the Russian mobile phone
network, means that most people are extremely unlikely to ever
encounter it," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "However, during the last year we
have seen more and more malware being written for profit, and this
is further evidence of that growing trend."
This is not the first time that Russian hackers have tried to
use malware to exploit the cellphone SMS system. In late 2004, the
Troj/Delf-HA
Trojan horse was discovered, which helped spammers send unsolicited
spam messages to mobile phones.
Sophos has received no reports of customers being affected by
the Redbrow Trojan horse, and issued protection against the threat
at 19:53 GMT, 28 February 2006.
Sophos continues to recommend that users exercise caution about
what software they run on their computers and mobile devices, and
run up-to-date security software.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.