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Sexy View SMS worm hits smartphones
Ben Woods
The world's first worm aimed at infecting smartphones and spreading spam is now in the wild
The SMS worm can infect smartphones by embedding itself in a text message
Published on Apr 14, 2009
Sexy View, the world's first smartphone worm is now on the loose and could be making its way into your mobile phone's inbox soon.
The discovery and warning of the Sexy View worm comes from security specialists F-Secure who explained that the worm manages to proliferate by sending an SMS to every contact in the device's address book inviting them to view some “sexy” pics, hence the name.
Of course, the unsuspecting user is more likely to follow the link as it comes from someone they know. Once they do, they are invited to download the application that gives access to the pictures. What it actually does, is to install software allowing the authors to gain information with the ultimate end result to be to direct a whole load of spam text messages to the owner.
Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure said, “Mobile phone spam is already a big problem in some parts of the world – eventually it will be an issue everywhere.”
