08 December 2007

Mobile Virology:
F-Secure Expects More Malware Attacks in 2008

In my personal opinion; Phone users have to do a lot wrong to be hit by a virus

F-Secure security report for 2007 is anything but good news: the company warns that new malware variants are being produced in bulk, with the numbers rising over half a million. The amount of cumulative malware detections doubled during the year, the company added.

There was a great deal of volume seen during 2007. Malware authors are producing variants in bulk.

Genuine innovation appears to be on the decline and is currently being replaced with volume and mass-produced kit malware.

But while new techniques weren't developed — the existing techniques were refined and adapted for much greater effectiveness. There are some very dangerous faces in the big crowd.

Symbian S60 3rd Edition has done an excellent job in curbing malware. Symbian leads the world's market share of smartphones. Mobile malware discovered during the second half of the year affects older S60 2nd Edition phones.

What we continue to see on 3rd Edition platforms are spy-tools. The application vendors are able to get their spy-tools signed by submitting them as "back-up" software. The signed application is then also marketed for dubiously legal purposes. This trend matches what we saw during H1 and we expect it to continue.

S60 3rd Edition is more tightly controlled than previous versions and thus the lack of malware so far. However, the iPhone demonstrates that some users of tightly controlled devices want to "unlock" those devices. During October there were Symbian platform "hacks" posted. The hacks used a bug in the firmware update package software to completely unsecure Symbian 3rd Edition phones. If more users opt to unsecure their phones, it will have an effect on the future of mobile security.

One additional thought, as commercial vendors use what amounts to social engineering to get their questionable software signed, can malware authors be far behind? With a system that relies on humans to sign software, humans are, as with PC malware, the weak link.

As for 2008, F-Secures forecasts that the volume of malware will most likely increase and tagged the year as a “challenge of endurance.” The full report is available here