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Expensive malware appears for Microsoft's Windows Mobile
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 19:41:32 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: the terminal of geoff goodfellow <geoff () iconia com> Date: June 5, 2010 2:04:24 PM EDT To: dfarber () cs cmu edu Subject: Expensive malware appears for Microsoft's Windows Mobile Reply-To: geoff () iconia com Malware embedded into legitimate-looking games designed for Windows Mobile has appeared, automatically dialing up foreign telephone services to ring up hundreds of dollars in illicit charges for users behind their backs. ... ... Critics have chafed at Apple's secure software signing model and have praised Google's alternative Android model, which enables users to download software from any source, without any security model in place, at their own risk. The appearance of malware on Windows Mobile is particularly interesting because the motivation of this assault was entirely financial. That being the case, the fact that the malicious developers targeted Windows Mobile, which is almost entirely limited to the US and now trails Symbian (42%), RIM (21%), and Apple's iPhone OS (15%) in market share (9% over the last year), throws decades of Windows-based punditry on its head because "malicious hackers" supposedly only target the largest platform. iPhone security features deter malware Just the fact that Apple has a real security policy in place for iPhone mobile software in its iTunes App Store serves as a strong deterrent for rogue developers from even attempting to distribute malicious iPhone OS software like the tainted games discovered for Windows Mobile. Jim Finkle, writing for Reuters, claimed that "hackers are increasingly targeting smartphone users as sales of the sophisticated mobile devices have soared with the success of Apple Inc's iPhone and Google Inc's Android operating system," but in reality, any attacks aimed at iPhone users are not software based expressly because of Apple's strict security policy, and must be limited to social engineering exploits that prey upon people directly, rather than infecting their devices with malware. Android users (just like Mac and Windows users) have no similar security protection in place, and should be very careful about downloading software, even from legitimate appearing websites. Unlike desktop malware, which is somewhat limited in the scope of damage it can cause, mobile malware has the ability to rapidly run up very expensive mobile bills for weeks before the user is likely to even notice a problem. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/04/expensive_malware_appears_for_microsofts_windows_mobile.html http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6535TS20100604 ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Expensive malware appears for Microsoft's Windows Mobile David Farber (Jun 06)