First Mobile Phone Virus Discovered

CHaN_316 writes "News.com.au is running an article about the First Mobile Phone Virus Discovered. The virus 'called Cabir - appears to have been developed by an international group specialising in creating viruses which try to show "that no technology is reliable and safe from their attacks"... until now it has had no harmful effect.' Cabir infects the Symbian operating system, and spreads via bluetooth. Great... lets see when we can download the world's first mobile phone anti-virus!"

why? oh why? WHY!?

[teamhasnoi]

Is there enough time to put something in the "from the 'x' dept" underneath the title, but no time to look on the right or SCROLL DOWN! and see the original story?

And this is after subscribers email Dupe! notices!

Re:Could have been worse...

[cynicalmoose]

Actually it's not that. The first cell phone virus would have happened ages ago if 90% of cell phones used the same architecture and OS. Whatever system you give that dominance, it will always have people exploiting it (or poor configuration thereof).

Re:For the love of god check the front page

[Isldeur]

You really have to wonder when the editors of slashdot consistently show that they themselves don't read slashdot. Don't you?

Discovered vs. Created

[thebes]

Aren't viruses created and implemented rather than just being discovered wrecking havoc on phones?

spam

[n0dez]

And yes... 85% of sms spam will come from infected windows cellphones.

It's a PHONE, dammit...

[dpbsmith]

...why, oh, why, oh WHY does everything that ought to be a simple, functional device end up as a bloated mass of featuritis with a clunky user interface, a 250-page manual... and the ability to accept and automatically execute executable content?

There is no rationale reason whatsoever why a cell phone needs to be susceptible to viruses.

What next? Digital cameras that are capable of updating their firmware by photographing the screen of the vendor's website... that will be infested by virus code which somebody smuggles onto the Jumbotron screen at a football game?

Re:I got an idea!!!

[Stormie]

You don't understand. The problem with dupe stories is not the mere fact that they are dupes, but that the discussion will now be fractured across two articles. That is why it is vitally important that any dupe story have its discussion reduced to a smouldering wasteland of "DUPE!" comments as quickly as possible. As you say, only 99 messages speak the obvious in this discussion - and as a result, some people have posted interesting and worthwhile comments that should have been instead posted to the first article.

Maybe next time, if 999 people scream "DUPE!", this tragedy can be avoided.

So?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Doctors don't diagnose themselves, Hairdressers don't cut their own hair, bus drivers take the car to work, the people at the benefits office got jobs. Surely reporters not reading their own stories is nothing to be suprised about. /me opens the morning newspaper and counts the spelling errors and dupe posts in a paid for newspaper. Neither do editors in "respectable" news outlets it seems.

Re:It's a PHONE, dammit...

[glesga_kiss]

There is no rationale reason whatsoever why a cell phone needs to be susceptible to viruses.

Then you think that there is no need for a mobile where you can install third-party software? All a virus is is a malicious piece of software.

Would the same hold for a PC perhaps? Maybe you should only ever be allowed to use the software that comes with it, provided by the OS vendor? That would make things a lot more secure! After all, "there is no need for a OS to be susceptible to viruses", is there?