Network Security News

A term 'botnet' is well-known to many a people; the scale of the problem can't be underestimated. The existing botnets are responsible for most spam and DoS-type attacks known nowadays. However, cell phones were not viewed as possible members of a network controlled by a third party and used to perform destructive actions. Impact Lab refers to such a precedent in First Zombie Cell Phone Network.

It is explained: for the first time criminal hackers may have succeeded in creating a network of “zombie” cellphones, infected without the owners’ knowledge with software that can be used to send spam or carry out cyber attacks.

For the first time, hackers may have created a network of cell phones that are infected without the owners’s knowledge and can be used to send spam or carry out cyber attacks.

Botnets, as such networks are known, are usually made up of infected personal computers and are used to make money from spam or extortion. Millions of machines worldwide are secretly running botnet software and it has been estimated that one in four US personal computers is part of a botnet.

No botnet has ever been discovered running on mobile devices – until now, that is. Security firm Symantec, headquartered in Cupertino, California, says that a piece of software known as Sexy Space may be the first case.

Sexy Space uses text messages reading “A very sexy girl, Try it now!” to jump between phones. The messages contains a link that, when clicked, asks the user to download software which, once installed, sends the same message to contacts stored in the phone.

Similar SMS viruses have been seen before. But Sexy Space is unusual in that it also communicates with a central server and can thus be controlled by the hackers who created it – the feature that gives conventional botnets their power. If the network of infected phones is seen to be responding to remote commands, it can be described as a true botnet.

Zulfikar Ramzan, Symantec’s technical director of security response, notes that it is not yet clear how Sexy Space will use the connection to the central server. “But this has all the makings of a mobile botnet,” he says.

Since the concept of a mobile botnet were not viewed much as a threat, the 'discoveries' in this area are less than pleasant. Since it's hard to monitor network activity in such a case, mobile botnets can become quite dangherous, since all kinds of negative consequences are available: from disabling, DoSing the mobile device to unauthorized access of private network resources. A variety of OSes used in mobile devices makes it less easy to determine and handle the problem quickly.

The final remark is the same: a human being is the weakest link in all the security chain. Social engineering may be quite effectively used to build mobile botnets with all kinds of destructive capabilities.

This article was brought to you by the developers of IPHost Network Monitor, network and server monitoring software.