Mobile devices next target for hackers

Hackers will use mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to form the next gateway into the network infrastructure, a security analyst has warned.

Last week's mobile phone scare that made Nokia handsets freeze after receiving a certain text message has sparked a debate about the possibility of phone viruses.

Graham Titterington, a senior consultant at Ovum, said that mobiles are too limited to contain the structure of viruses, but that new technology will make them vulnerable.

"A virus like the Love Bug is too complex to run on today's mobile phones. Their limited functionality is their protection," said Titterington. "But as we move to Wap, third generation and add memory, the increased power and connectivity sets the gates wide open. The combined mobile device of a phone and PDA becomes a small terminal to the corporate network that is powerful enough to run viruses."

Titterington added that mobile phones are especially vulnerable to attacks because they are always online and because they are popular with a large number of users.

"Unless the marketing of combined mobile devices is synchronised with enhanced securities, stories will start coming in about viruses finding their way into the network through mobile phones," he said.

He did not believe that the Nokia scare was a virus but more like a small bug hidden in the text header, causing the processor to go into a loop which could only be resolved by taking out the battery to reboot the machine.

First published in Network News