Can we get virus on our phones?

I have talked before about phone viruses, it was said ah no, it will only occur on Smartphones.

Think again and read this article that i pasted

“Did you know that only 16% of mobile phones are smartphones? The other 5 billion are "low end" basic phones, also called feature phones that can perform only a few other tasks like send text messages, play games, or play back MP3s. Just in case those 5 billion users felt left out when comes to the ability for their cell phone to be attacked, researchers from the Berlin Institute of Technology have come up with "SMS-o-Death."

Although feature phones are harder to attack, two students found a way to send malicious text messages via short message service (SMS) and force cell phones to shut down. Collin Mulliner and Nico Golde, from the Security in Telecommunications department at the Technische Universitaet Berlin, took advantage of SMS protocol that can transmit small programs called binaries that are most often used by network operators to change setting remotely on mobile devices. These researchers were able to create malicious SMS messages for all popular feature phones such as Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Micromax. The attack could abruptly shut down cell phones and knock them off a cellular network.

Technology Review reported that because feature phones are so common, Mulliner says, such an attack "could take out a large percentage of mobile communications." To target a specific victim, an attacker would need to know the make and model of the victim's mobile phone -- since each platform requires a different malicious binary message. Mulliner says that attackers could get around that and "easily knock out large numbers of phones by sending a set of five SMS messages -- targeted to the five most popular models -- to every device on a specific network."

There's not much that can be done to thwart these attacks. Mulliner said, "The only people who can defend against this attack are the network operators." It require non-smartphone owners to update firmware on existing phones. Many feature phone owners either don't know how to update via USB or fear the update will be buggy. Another approach might be filtering out the text messages, but filtering software is most commonly used to catch spam and is not optimized to catch binaries.

Charlie Miller, a security researcher who is well known as "I'm that Apple 0day guy," has discovered security flaws in iPhones and other mobile devices. "Smart phones are sexier targets, but the masses still by and large use feature phones," Miller said. Because most cell phones are feature phones, the SMS-o-Death could affect billions of people, yet be unlikely or very difficult for attackers to steal personal information. SMS vulnerabilities in iPhones and Windows Mobile-based HTC devices allow attackers to steal personal info and take over phones, Miller added, citing research he and Mulliner had conducted a few years ago.

SMS-o-Death does not permanently kill a mobile phone, but the problem could prove very difficult to fix and its tricks could exasperate targeted people to no end. It adds up to be a very annoying prank by shutting off the phone without the owner's knowledge or knocking the phone off the cellular network .

created by pcworld uploaded by Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean, Navenny, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, Ireland
www.pcclean.ie
sales@pcclean.ie
086-2377033 Pc Clean for Computer repairs, Laptop Repairs, Virus repair and removal service, callout services, network issues, printer problems in the Stranorlar, Letterkenny, Donegal Town, Lifford, Castlefinn, Donegal Area.  Computer Training, Social network for your business, online marketing,

Mobile Phone to be send to Space for testing

British engineers are planning to put a mobile phone in space.

The team at SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford want to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known.

The mobile will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.

It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.

Although mobile phones have been flown on high altitude balloons before, this would likely be the first time such a device has gone into orbit several hundred kilometres above the planet.

"Modern smartphones are pretty amazing," said Shaun Kenyon, the project manager at SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Limited).

"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite."

High Street product

The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.

The mission is known as STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration).

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible”

End Quote Doug Liddle Head of science, SSTL.

It involves both the company and researchers from the University of Surrey's space centre (SSC).

Much of the development work has been done in team-members' spare time.

The mobile model being used will be a standard, sub-£300 ($450), smartphone available in High Street stores.

"We're not taking it apart; we're not gutting it; we're not taking out the printed circuit boards and re-soldering them into our satellite - we're flying it as is," Mr Kenyon explained.

"And, in fact, we're going to have another camera on the satellite so we can take a picture of the phone because we want to operate the screen and have some good images of that as well."

Eye on Earth

Critical to the whole endeavour is the phone's operating system.

Android is open source software which means the engineers can modify it to adapt the phone's functions.

Google sent Nexus S smartphones to an altitude of 18km (60,000ft) on balloons last year

The great swings in temperature and the harsh radiation found in space require the phone be placed inside the satellite casing to give it some protection.

A hole will have to be cut in the side of the casing therefore to allow the phone's camera lens to see out.

The phone itself will not "call home"; messages and pictures will come back via the satellite's radio link.

For the first part of the mission, the mobile will act as the back-up to the main computer on the spacecraft.

After a period of time, however, the phone will be put in charge.

"We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible," said Doug Liddle, head of science at SSTL.

"Ideally, the phone can take control and do the thinking."

Busy months

To precisely point and manoeuvre, the satellite will be incorporating advanced guidance, navigation and control systems including miniature reaction wheels, and a GPS receiver, as well as innovative pulse plasma thrusters to propel it through space.

The latest smartphones pack enormous capability into a very small space

The intention is that the phone be given the chance to oversee all these subsystems.

"The open source nature of the software is very exciting because you can see how further down the line, once we've got the phone working in orbit, we could get people to develop apps for it," Mr Liddle added.

Chris Bridges from the Surrey Space Centre commented: "If a smartphone can be proved to work in space, it opens up lots of new technologies to a multitude of people and companies for space who usually can't afford it. It's a real game-changer for the industry."

SSTL has earned a worldwide reputation for its small satellites. The company has managed to reduce the cost of its systems by incorporating components that were originally developed for consumer products such as laptops.

The coming months will see the company launch Earth observation spacecraft for Nigerian, Russian and Canadian customers.

It is also about to start building the spacecraft that will form the initial constellation of Galileo, Europe's multi-billion-euro answer to America's GPS network.