&#39;Skulls&#39; Mobile Security Threat Seen Low-McAfee
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A computer program known as &quot;Skulls&quot; with potentially destructive capability aimed at advanced mobile devices was seen as a low threat because it had not targeted consumers, security software maker McAfee Inc.
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A new low threat virus has been popping up on some Symbian OS-powered phones, according to an F-Secure anti-virus. The virushas been found at some Symbian shareware download sites under the filename &quot;Extended
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Celltrust developed its SecureSMS application so banks could deliver secure text messages to their customers&#39; mobile phones -- but the company&#39;s chief technology officer wonders whether French president Nicolas Sarkozy might like a copy of the software.Sarkozy sued a French magazine on Thursday for publishing a message it alleged he had sent by SMS (Short Message Service) to his ex-wife just days before his marriage to singer Carla Bruni earlier this month. The president accused the magazine of falsification, use of false documents and possession of stolen goods.If a text message is sent using SecureSMS then even if the phone is stolen, the secured messages on it cannot be read, Celltrust CTO Houman Shafiezadeh said at a press event in Barcelona, on the eve of the Mobile World Congress.That&#39;s because SecureSMS encrypts messages before transmission using a key unique to the sender, decodes them at a secure gateway and reencrypts using another key for delivery. A special application on the sender&#39;s and the recipient&#39;s phones stores the encrypted message, and will only decrypt and display it if the appropriate password is provided.SecureSMS can encrypt messages sent between two cell phones as long as both subscribers have set up accounts with Celltrust, Shafiezadeh said.Celltrust&#39;s target market, though, is big business: it hopes that banks will use its gateway and application software to secure the messages they send out to customers. The software has other advantages for banks: it provides confirmation of the reception and opening of secured messages, showing that whoever holds the phone also has the password.These confirmations, however, are sent by SMS and paid for by the phone subscriber. That makes the application more suitable for customers on tariffs allowing unlimited text messages.&quot;If you&#39;re paying 10 cents a message, I wouldn&#39;t recommend it,&quot; Shafiezadeh said.Celltrust is in talks with a number of U.S. banks to roll out the software in trials, he said. Finding enough customers with the right kinds of account, phone and SMS tariff is slowing things down, he said. Once the banks have identified the customers, the company will invite them to download the application, so that it can fine-tune the delivery process. The trials should begin in March, with a commercial service up and running by September, he said.The SecureSMS software is initially available as a J2EE applet for phones capable of running Java applications. Other versions, for Microsoft&#39;s Windows Mobile and for Qualcomm&#39;s Brew platform, will soon be ready.After that, Shafiezadeh said, it will be a race between Celltrust coders producing versions for Google&#39;s Android platform -- for which there is an SDK (software development kit) but no phones -- and for Apple&#39;s iPhone, on the market for almost eight months but with no official SDK available yet. That&#39;s frustrating for Shafiezadeh because Celltrust has issued its employees with iPhones.Other companies offer secure SMS tools, but for more limited ranges of handsets. Kryptext, in Brighton, England, offers an application by the same name that works only on phones running Symbian OS, while Finnish handset maker Benefon (now GeoSentric) offered handsets that could send encrypted text messages back in 2003.The Mobile World Congress, at the Fira de Barcelona, runs through Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - It may have taken enterprise customers years to get proper security tools in place to defend their PCs, but if large businesses drag their feet in aligning the applications necessary to protect their smartphones, they will pay a heavy price, says Symantec. As part of a media tour to call attention to the planned launch of its Symantec Mobile Security Suite 5.0 package on June 4 -- touted as its most comprehensive product to date for protecting handheld devices against loss or attack -- experts with the company said hackers and electronic scammers are already creating a mobile environment that will soon rival the dangers of today's PC security landscape. All of the attack profiles that have become standard fare for desktops and laptops, from root kit-like programs that attempt to infect device operating systems, to ingenious social engineering attempts that play on the multimedia footprint of smartphones, have already arrived, said Khoi Nguyen, group product manager for mobile security at Symantec. How quickly the attacks multiply and proliferate will be determined only by the pace with which people adopt more powerful handhelds and how aggressive they are in defending the devices, he said. Unlike in previous years where much of the buzz around wireless security could be attributed to forward thinking, Symantec believes that handheld platforms are about to be deluged by a storm of different types of attacks. "Since the first mobile threats started arriving several years ago things have evolved dramatically, these attacks are real and people are being impacted by them today, particularly in other regions of the world where smartphone use is higher than in the U.S.," Nguyen said. "We are still in the early stages here, but things are evolving much more rapidly than they did on the PC side; as more enterprises adopt smartphones and they are being used more frequently to carry out financial transactions, the attackers will be there waiting." While Symantec estimates that there are still about 450 PC-oriented threats for every attack designed to assail mobile devices, the company expects the gap to close rapidly over the next several years. As new devices and applications that are expected to drive adoption of smartphones hit the market, such as those built to run on Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, more enterprises will buy the memory-heavy handhelds and hackers will follow, the security expert said. In the last month alone, Symantec has uncovered root-kit style threats attacking Symbian smartphones which attempt to modify the devices' operating system files to bypass onboard security features. The company has also observed so-called snoopware programs, which add voice-driven schemes into the malware mix. One snoopware attack, which had the ability to remotely activate a smartphone's microphone to secretly eavesdrop on calls, take control of its camera to surreptitiously take pictures, and forward all of a user's text messages to another account, was aimed at users of Windows Mobile With an estimated 60-70 percent of the world's smartphones running on Symbian software today, most mobile previously-identified device attacks have targeted the company's OS. In moving to target Windows Mobile users in such a way, hackers illustrate how they are already preparing to cash in on the projected growth of Microsoft's platform, according to Nguyen. "Basically the threats have gone from proof-of-concept to full-blown spyware in a span of three years, whereas it took over a decade for the same type of evolution to occur on the desktop side," said Nguyen. "On the enterprise side, companies are finding that the smartphone is just another endpoint that is going to need to be protected in the same way that desktops and laptops are protected today." As a result of the need for PC-like protection for their handhelds, Symantec is pitching a range of applications in Mobile Security Suite 5.0 that mimic its products for larger computers. Included in the package will be what the company is touting as the first network access control (NAC) system for smartphones, with NAC applications still existing as a fairly new security development in the PC space. Much like a PC-oriented NAC system, the smartphone tools -- which must be used in concert with Symantec's standalone mobile VPN product line -- promise to perform a series of security health checks on devices before the handhelds are allowed to access corporate networks. Another capability unique to the company's latest enterprise smartphone defense package is a tamper-protection feature that monitors devices' operating systems to detect any attempts to modify the code, such as in root kit attacks. As with its Norton consumer smartphone offerings, the Mobile Security Suite 5.0 package will also include more traditional anti-virus and firewall tools as well. Other industry watchers agree that enterprises must have their smartphone security plans firmly in place as they hand out more of the devices to employees. And according to executives at Nokia, the world's top producer of mobile devices, more customers than ever are asking about security implications upfront as they consider wider smartphone distribution. One of the most significant concerns among customers remains the use of unsanctioned devices in the enterprise, typically occurring when workers who have not yet been offered smartphones by their employers instead begin using their own handhelds to carry out business tasks. "A lot of people are still asking us about dealing with unsanctioned devices, the administrators realize that there are often a lot of people using their smartphones in the enterprise without authorization, and they need to find a way to protect themselves," said Kara Hayes, senior product marketing manager for Nokia's Security & Mobility Connectivity group. "People are also very concerned about device loss and theft, they want the ability to wipe the data on the device and kill service," she said. "They want mobile e-mail protection and they're concerned about preventing against data loss; security really has become a big part of the conversation with customers looking to adopt smartphones across more of their organization." Sam Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis, said that organizations should take the best practices they have developed for laptops and port them directly into their smartphone adoption plans. "This all goes back to the migration from desktops to laptops. There are a lot of common sense implications, and people need to be sensible about creating realistic policies that both protect the data on the device and allow users to tap into the potential of the smart phones," Bhavnani said. "Some people are still scared to go there, they know that adopting these devices will open another can of worms, but creating smart policies ahead of time and building on their laptop experience will be the best ways to foster strong mobile security."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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By Rochelle Garner  McAfee Inc., a maker of security software that blocks spam and flags fraudulent Web sites, predicts a wave of attacks next year by professional criminals intent on stealing passwords and other confidential data.
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Pop-up blocker and phishing protection feature are vulnerable to attacks, according to SecuriTeam reports.
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Since the Skulls virus hit, people are starting to become aware of the fact that cell phones are just as vulnerable to attacks as computers.
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InfoWorld - The odds of a search engine directing you to a risky Web site are getting slimmer, but some companies are better at filtering out bad links than others, McAfee reported Monday.
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&quot;It&#39;s the same old stuff we&#39;ve seen in all the Bagle variants over the last months. The authors have just modified it to evade detection of most antivirus programs and spammed it widely,&quot; said Mikko HyppÃ¶nen of F-Secure.
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Viruses on mobile phones are still rare but nearly three-quarters of mobile phone users in developed countries are worried about security on their handsets, a survey showed on Wednesday.
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Tech managers fear businesses are more vulnerable to malware because of wireless devices used by workers
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Intrusion prevention capabilities in IOS can be circumvented by hackers, putting companies at risk of attack.
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TechWeb - Security researchers at IBM admire the iPhone&#39;s apparent security but note it will suffer from its fair share of attacks.
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McAfee on Monday unveiled a new security service designed to let small companies outsource their e-mail security to the antivirus software maker.
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Malware affecting mobile devices made its debut into the wild in 2004, and threats are likely to increase in future, antivirus software vendor F-Secure Corp has said.
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Uncertainty about how to secure mobile phones in the face of increasing threats is slowing enterprise adoption of mobile applications, experts exhibiting at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona this week said.
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A malicious code dubbed &quot;Skulls&quot; was launched from Web sites that offered phone users downloads of wallpaper, games and ring tones.