New viruses for the Symbian OS

After Cabir, some new viruses are shaking the world of the Symbian OS.

According to F-Secure, the new Trojan is different enough to deserve a new name - Dampig.A, a trojan-born SIS file, masked as a crack of version 3.2 of the FSCaller application.

The Trojan disables some built-in applications and third party file managers and attempts to install variants of the Cabir worm onto infected handsets. "None of the Cabir variants installed on the phone will start automatically, but some of the applications replaced with Cabir executables, such as Messaging application, will be most likely called and thus executed by the user," notes the Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure.

F-Secure says the Trojan is trickier to remove than earlier forms of mobile malware. Dampig corrupts the system uninstallation information, so it cannot be removed without disinfecting the phone with an anti-virus.

The virus spreads also using the Bluetooth technology, but the damaging action of the malware is taking place only after the user has accepted the installation, and usually they don't suspect it is a virus.

Another virus that has appeared lately is the CommWarrior.a virus, as SimWorks have named it.
The virus spreads through the MMS system so it can instantaneously send itself to any mobile phone in the world.

SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson says "This is a significant development, as until now mobile viruses have used Bluetooth to spread which only has a range of 10 meters surrounding the infected device. Using MMS, viruses like CommWarrior have a much greater potential to spread globally".

CommWarrior scans the infected phone's address book and periodically sends MMS messages to randomly selected contacts. It sends a copy of itself and one of several predefined text messages designed to encourage the recipient to install the application.