15 May 2007

Just because it's Signed
doesn't mean it isn't spying on you!!!

Few days ago F-secure have detected a spyware running on 2 Symbian Signed applications. They didn’t publish names of the application so I am a little bit skeptic about and truly hope it just isn’t sensationalistic news released just to convince us that we need AV software and to increase the sale result of their antivirus application for Symbian S60 platform 3rd ed, although 3rd edition is very well protected and protection is still unbreakable so there is no real danger for 3rd edition phones owners.

Anyway, the reported that they have received samples of two new mobile spying tools – running on new platforms. There is now spyware for both Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 3rd Edition devices.

We thought it likely that spyware rather than malware would be seen first on these platforms. Hobbyists of varying skill levels write all of the mobile malware that we have seen so far, and most mobile malware is rather simple.

While on the other hand, Spyware is being developed by commercial companies that have a lot more resources, skills, and motivation to get their creations to work.

Both new spying tools are rather similar in their capabilities. After being installed on the device, they hide from the user and report information from the phone to a central server. From there, it can be accessed through a web page interface.

In my personal opinion Symbian users have to do a lot wrong to be hit by a virus and speaking of 3rd edition it’s the mission impossible at the moment!!!

An interesting fact is that the spyware for the Symbian 3rd Edition platform is Symbian signed. Therefore it can be installed without any warnings and is capable of operating without Symbian security alerting the user that something is going on.The certificate that was given to the software company was for RBackupPRO.

That name is different than the name they use to brand their spy tool. The name RBackupPRO would appear to indicate that the software is some kind of network backup tool. Right?

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