Mass outbreak of the Cabir virus in Finland

A few dozen visitors to the world atheletic championships in Helsinki went home with a little souvenir of the game: a cellphone infected with the Cabir virus. Mobile viruses haven't been quite the plague that computer viruses have been, but apparently at least one person went to the games, which were held at Helsinki's Olympic Stadium, with a handset infected with the Cabir virus. The virus was then able to wirelessly jump from Series 60 phone to Series 60 phone via Bluetooth, with each newly infected phone automatically searching for other phones to infect.

[Gil @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

stupid people leaving their blutooth on. It even cuts into your battery time so I don't understand why they leave it on

[russdogg @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

i used to think that way while I still had my motorola, i rarely used the earpiece because it cut the batterry life into a fourth of its normal span. But the sony ericson i have now has way better battery and i leave bluetooth on all the time now and use the earpiece tons too. Can these virus only infect your phone if it is set to "discoverable" because that would be stupid of people left that on...

[Martin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Cue Nelson Muntz: "Haw Haw!"

[Sasquatch @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I have an idea -- Just don't have a cellphone... Is it really that important to you to have your braincells heated by the microwave radiation?

[Jeremy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Sasquatch, what if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and it's storming? Think before you say stupid things like that.

[dimitri @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

If you have the phone "hidden" (or "non-discoverable" depending the company of the phone) and require a password for any new import/export to/from the phone, do you still have to be aware of that "cabir" or any other bluetooth-transferable virus?

[dimitri @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

If you have the phone "hidden" (or "non-discoverable" depending the company of the phone) and require a password for any new import/export to/from the phone, do you still have to be aware of that "cabir" or any other bluetooth-transferable virus?

[Google Nazi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

blue tooth will be in everything these days.... the end is near when your own clothes try to kill you because it got a virus.

[Pyrhhus @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

#4, How bout just don't have a Car? Do you really want to be killed by the pollution? I mean come on! Everything seems to be bad for you these days. If you just don't like cellphones just say it! Just because you don't find a use for it doesn't mean that others don't. I call troll!

[alc277 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

#5, it's not like your phone would have reception in the middle of no where, and you can kiss Satellite LOS goodbye in the storm. But you can take my cell phone from my cold dead hand.

[Pete Jenkins @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

if your phone is not set to be discoverable, and you're not actively using bluetooth, there's no way for someone to get your phones mac address. if you are using a headset or likewise someone could probably sniff you mac address and then try to connect to it. i assume password protection would still protect you, but i'm not sure that's a correct assumption. a buddy of mine who's generally in the know about such things suggested that there may be a way for someone to force bluetooth to turn on even it it's turned off, but that doesn't sound quite feasable to me. i mean i think it just functions like a network adapter with a mac address and everything. if someone doesn't know your mac address, i don't think they'd have any way of connecting to your phone, but even if there's encryption going on, they can still see the source and destination addresses of packets. if anyone has some more info or links to info regarding the technical aspects of blue snarfing and the like, send me an email gpenkins00 AT yahoo.com

[Topmounter @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

"The recipient needs to accept a download to be infected..."

[Sasquatch @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

The way you people defend your cell phone shows the amount of importance you put on it for your personal needs...

If you reprioritize your lives and realize you don't really need one (anymore than people did for the first 3/4's of the 20th century, you could save around $30,000 in 20 years.

Is it really worth $30,000 to you to be able to have a pretty ringtone or be able to text message someone to say, "Wuzuup homie?!"

[Morgon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

For such a luddite, you seem to be active enough on a gadget site -- full of the world's most 'useless' (by your standards), most expensive technology items -- to read and post, on a computer. The world got on fine without them until the 1950's (approx, nobody play History teacher on me here), why can't you?

[dunning @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

first of all, why would execute a file that got sent to your phone or for that matter why would you accept the file in the first place? I have my bluetooth on 24/7 on discoverable never had any bluetooth activity other my own.

You also have to have a series 60 phone to be infected so your general nokia 6310i or sony t610 will not be affected..

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

#13 Do you really need a phone? People lived for thousands of years without. Same for electricity. At what point did you decide technology was good enough and nothing new should be adopted?

There is a community in Washington state where they are fighting getting land phones. This same community 30 years ago fought electricity. Go ahead and try to get them to give up electricity now.

[MiniMage @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Sasquatch, after I give my cell phone back, can I tell the hospital that employs me that I don't really need the pager, either? Oh, never mind. I think NO ONE knows enough about the rest of us to accurately determine whether or not we need to be able to communicate (personally or otherwise) when we're not near land lines.

[stingraze @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

yikes better turn my bluetooth off

[Tero @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

"#5, it's not like your phone would have reception in the middle of no where, and you can kiss Satellite LOS goodbye in the storm. But you can take my cell phone from my cold dead hand."

Whether you have reception or not is somewhat related to where you live. If one lives in U.S.A. you most probably won't get reception, and you'll have problems even in urban areas. If you live somewhere else, somewhere where there are actually networks built by operators, reception is not an issue, be it urban or rural area.

[Melissa @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

It doesn't matter if your phone is Series 60 or not - even if you refuse the file transfer, an infected phone will attempt to send it to you continuously until you are out of range, prohibiting you from phoning (in or out), texting, or (on my SE K700i) even turning off the Bluetooth because "it's in use"!

There are legitimate reasons to have your Bluetooth on and discovereable - I attach my phone to both my home and work computers so it doesn't make sense to turn it off for the ten minute walk in between the two. Until I changed the name of my phone to "notinterested" I was getting toothed on average 2-3 times a day, but I've only been attacked by these viruses twice ever. Still, I'd take a few harmless perverts over a malicious virus attack any day.

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I used this tool:

http://www.cell-phone-viruses.com/1115313058-removal-tools-cabir-caribe-skulls-locknut.html

to desinfect Cabir from my cell phone.