Fighting Beselo, the SymbianOS Worm

Through MMS, it is sweeping the world under disguises such as Beauty.jpg, Sex.mp3, or Love.rm. Once it gets into your mobile phone, which runs through SymbianOS, you are presented an installation dialogue upon clicking on the malicious attachment. As you are deceived by its guises, you will then install it. And when it gets installed, the worm collect all your contact, then targeting them, and finally sending to them an MMS file carrying its packed SIS (or Symbian Installation Source) version. Apart from that, this worm can also send its copies via generated mobile phone numbers. Yes, it is Beselo, the fearful SymbianOS Worm.

But the fun days are over for Beselo, for Secure Mobile Systems (or SMobile Systems) has developed a software that can fight the horrible worm. SMobile Systems has created a mobile anti-virus update and cleaning tool, and introduced it to their Security Shield platform for mobile phones. With that, the mobile phones are protected from any Beselo worm, and, if already infected, are disinfected by the cleaning tool.



According to a press release, George Tuvell, chief technology officer of SMobile, said that SMobile has been at the forefront of monitoring and protecting mobile phone companies and their users and subscribers against malware attacks such as Beselo. “Sadly, this worm proves that mobile viruses are no longer ‘theoretical’ in nature,” Tuvell added.

Beselo had been attacking mobile phones using Symbian S60, some of which are Nokia’s 6630, 7610, 6680, and N70. “This is a particularly insidious virus that is smarter in design, and ultimately more dangerous to consumers, corporate smart phone users and to the carriers who provide service to mobile customers, than nearly any previous attack that has gotten into the wild,” Tuvell said.

It is, by far, safe to say that Beselo is just a part of the past. Relatively, mobile phone attacks by malicious software are still considered rare nowadays that there really isn’t much commotion created from malware attack reports. However, mobile companies worry that modifications of this Beselo worm can easily frighten the mobile market yet again, before new measures against the new worm are developed. Loki