| RexSpy: a new virus for mobile phones |
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| Written by Alberto Redi (halfmoon) | ||||
| Friday, 17 November 2006 | ||||
 Privacy has died long time ago, but it is always discomforting to know about new measures by which we can be spied and controlled all the time. A virus for mobile phones has been recently implemented by the German data security firm SecurStar Gmbh which claims to have developed a software, even if just as a demonstration, that will allow people to eavesdrop on phone calls and text messages. Wilfried Hafner, CEO of SecurStar GmbH, presented the software, which works as a Trojan Horse and is named RexSpy, during the IT Security exhibition "System" in Munich, and he focused on its alarming effects. Indeed the virus acts by exploiting network vulnerabilities to get the access to any kind of mobile phone... During his speech, Hafner demonstrated how in few seconds it is possible to jeopardize a mobile phone through an SMS: the sender is than allowed to spy any communication passing through such device that becomes also an instrument to monitor the surrounding environment. “The SMS sender can spy on the cell-phone user around the clock, as long as the cell phone is in use. All SMS messages can be read and all conversations can be listened to. The surrounding areas can be monitored via the infected cellular phone. The Trojan can also access and forward complete address books,” declared SecurStar in an official Press Release. Moreover, according to Herr Hafner, the most impressive element in this issue is that the virus isn’t particularly hard to generate and any skilled coder could be able to develop a similar software and spread it out: “What's so alarming is that any programmer can develop a similar Trojan horse application without any great investment of time or effort. If anyone were to circulate such a malicious virus, it would have devastating consequences,” SecurStar concluded. SecurStar offers a software that could thwart RexSpy action for free download for devices using Microsoft Windows, whereas a version for Symbian devices is in development and they elaborated PhoneCrypt, which promises to protect customers against any attempt of electronic eavesdropping. Well, no doubt that the initiative by SecurStar was aimed to mere research purposes, but it sounds weird that a company commercializing a product against mobile-phone viruses , is also producing the same “dangerous virus” that they claim to fight, doesn’t it? The GSM Association, the organization which spread news about GSM technology around the world, was asked an opinion about RexSpy, but it didn’t answered immediately, maybe because this is not the first attempt to implement a similar software for phone eavesdropping and it won’t be the last one, of course.
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