Kaspersky Lab, a leading provider of security solutions that protect against viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, crimeware, rootkits, phishing, hacker attacks and spam, today reported that it has detected a Trojan targeting the Symbian operating system. The Online Scanner Top Twenty chart for June 2008 highlights that the Trojan is attacking the platform that currently accounts for 72.4% of the global Smartphone market.
Entering the chart at ninth position, Trojan SymbOS.Skuller.gen is one of the oldest Trojans for Symbian OS, replacing all file icons with a skull.
Yet despite its age, the success of the Symbian platform and the exponential uptake of smartphones - 115 million smartphones were sold worldwide in 2007 and analyst group Canalys predicts that global shipments will reach one billion by 2012 - has seen the malicious program become prolific.
To be honest I am surprised that one oldie virus like Trojan.SymbOS.Skuller.gen that is only harmful for 2nd ed devices is positioned that high on the Kaspersky’ Online Scanner?!? Sure, there is a still huge base of the 2nd ed phones users but they are slowly becoming a minority in Symbian world and therefore this Skuller “success” is really weird and I am of course a little suspicious about this chart!
Senior Technology Consultant at Kaspersky Lab, David Emm comments, “In May 2008 the Metropolitan Police published statistics stating that up to 10,000 mobile devices are stolen each month. But, phones don’t need to be physically stolen to be the subject of theft.” He adds, “In most cases the data held on smartphones is worth far more than the device itself, and for this reason the level of protection you put in place should be as high as the level of protection you would put in place on your laptop or PC. ”
Launched earlier this year, Kaspersky Mobile Security 7.0 offers powerful protection for data stored on Symbian and Windows Mobile-based smartphones in the event that the device is lost, as well as protecting against network attacks, malware and SMS spam.
The software allows users to completely block a lost device or to remotely delete all the data on it. Moreover, if a smartphone is stolen, the SIM-Watch function prevents the thief from accessing data on the phone without the original SIM card; as soon as the original SIM card is replaced, a message notifies its owner of the new telephone number.
For further information regarding the June 2008 Kaspersky Lab Online Scanner Top Twenty and The Virus Top Twenty please visit:
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