What is a Mobile Virus?

A mobile virus is a malicious file that supports the commonly used operating systems by mobiles or PDA's and thus tries to damage the device's software. The malware enters the device through a number of backdoors such as bluetooth or through multimedia messages or even emails when downloaded to your mobile. The virus is capable of scanning the complete device for contacts and thereby forwarding itself to all these contacts either by way of multimedia message or through SMS's. This way, viruses have found their way to the mobile environment just to disturb you or to lower your credit balance. Not only does the virus spread itself, it can practically get the access to your PDA's important files and erase them thus crashing the complete device.

The first Mobile Virus:

Mobile viruses have been on the loose for quite a while now and the first one was out in the year 2004 which was a Trojan. This Trojan was just a game called Mosquito, which used to send text messages to all the contacts in the phone without the user's knowledge. This way, the mobile user ended up getting high bills. However, this Trojan was just a beginning to the launch of other viruses. It might not have done much of a damage, but it really gave people a clue that viruses can even be executed on a mobile which was enough for many!

Worst Mobile viruses:

Cabir:

Cabir was launched in 2004 and was one of the most memorable viruses in the history of mobile viruses. It gave an initiation and an encouragement to other virus-makers to create better viruses for the future. This makes it very special and at the same time, the most dangerous mobile virus we ever had. The virus runs on Symbian which is a mobile operating system. It troubles you by displaying weird messages related to c:\system\apps\caribe\. The spreading routine used by this virus is Bluetooth. However, mobile antiviruses have brought the technology to get rid of this virus in no time. So if you're getting any message relating to this name, that should mean you're infected with Cabir.

Duts:

This would be the most interesting virus you would've ever come across. It injects its code into all the EXE files present in the directory and thereby when this file is executed in another phone, the virus launches itself in the new environment. Now let me tell you the specialty of this virus. When the infected file is executed, the virus is generous enough to ask the user his/her permission if it can spread. If you need to open that file very badly, you'll have to allow the virus to run. This way, Duts brought another trend in mobile virus creation.

Skulls:

That's another Trojan horse for the Symbian Operating System. Once the virus is executed, it changes all the desktop icons' to skulls. Luckily, Skulls doesn't inject its code into other files. Instead, it disables several of your mobile's services such as MMS and SMS. In other words, most of the applications won't work! Skulls also messes with the mobile's operating system so if you have a suspicion that your mobile has this virus, you might as well install a good mobile anti-virus.

Commwarrior:

A new generation to mobile viruses began with the Commwarrior. It was the first worm to be made for a mobile. When executed, this worm activates the bluetooth of the mobile and attempts to spread through this method. Not only that, it is also the first mobile virus to use the MMS as a method of propagation. Not much information has been gathered about the worm since it is being repeatedly updated. Like the other viruses described, this one also targets the Operating System files of your mobile. So if you don't want that mobile to crash, you need to get a mobile antivirus today!

These were just a few of those viruses. There are lot more so be cautious not to leave your bluetooth turned on, not to open an MMS consisting of a meaningless name and not to share files that you think have a virus in them. Here's what you do when you think your mobile is infected.

• Open the processes menu
• Look for any suspicious processes
• Kill the suspicious processes
• Find and delete the file from which the process is being launched.

This is a simple trick that works with most of the mobile viruses. If it doesn't you know what to do. Install a Mobile Antivirus!