At the 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3) in Berlin, two German computer security experts, Mulliner and Golde, presented a research paper demonstrating how mobile phones are vulnerable to attacks via malicious SMS and MMS messages.
Such attacks can block mobile phones, and some of them can even cause problems for the entire mobile network. Recently, attackers and security experts have focused on smartphones such as the iPhone and Android-based devices; however, they account for only about 16% of mobile devices in use. On the other hand, the total number of classic mobile phones in use is 4.6 billion. These phones have additional features related to text messaging, such as instant display of incoming messages, adding digital business cards (vCard), sending text in multiple parts, etc. All these software functions have certain vulnerabilities. The research showed that vulnerable phones include those from manufacturers Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Micromax. The most severely affected devices would block as soon as they received a message, even before confirming receipt, causing the malicious message to be resent upon rebooting the device. The only way out of the situation would be to insert the SIM card into a phone that is not affected by the problem. Researchers also considered an attack on the mobile network by simultaneously sending malicious messages to thousands of vulnerable phones from the same manufacturer. (www.cert.hr)
