August 11, 2005
Mobile phone virus infects Helsinki championships
Visitors to the world athletics championships in Finland face the possibility of catching the world's first mobile phone virus, reveals Reuters.
"At most we are speaking about dozens of infections, but during a short period and in one spot this is a huge number," said Jarmo Koski, a security official at telecoms firm TeliaSonera.
Cabir, first reported in June last year, uses Bluetooth signals to jump between cellphones. It can spread over distances of up to 10 meters (30 feet), which in a packed stadium could include dozens of phones.
The recipient needs to accept a download to be infected and, while telecoms security officials say the risk of catching a mobile virus is small, thousands of phones have already been hit around the world.
"There must be a lot of infected phones at the stadium and a lot of Bluetooth traffic," said Antti Vihavainen, from antivirus software firm F-Secure. "It is the early version of Cabir, which can infect only one phone at a time. Later versions of Cabir are much more fierce."
Cabir drains the power of the infected phone as it tries to replicate itself on nearby mobiles but the most damaging viruses could disable a phone, requiring a factory reset.
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