NetQin: Botnets hit 100,000 Symbian phones

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Botnets have been discovered targeting a number of Symbian OS editions, potentially affecting 100,000 mobile phones.

Mobile security firm NetQin discovered that botnets using popular topics such as the World Cup to spread have been initiated to trick users of the Symbian S60 third and fifth generation operating systems.

Once on a device, the botnets will either send messages to all contacts in the user’s address book directly, or to random phone numbers by connecting to a server.

These messages contain URLs linking to malicious websites and the viruses will also delete sent messages from the outbox and SMS log.

“So, to make the long story short, these new botnet viruses have started causing trouble on mobile devices. Our team at NetQin has managed to detect them and we’re getting together with operators to try and put a stop to them,” a blog post from NetQin read.

“Make sure you update your virus database to be protected from the new botnet generation of viruses,” it advised.

At the time of publication, the Symbian Foundation had not responded to a request for more information on whether it had come across the botnets and if it was helping prevent such attacks.

Read on to look at our report on the mobile security threat.

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