Leading anti-virus firm Sophos have advised that the worlds first mobile virus, as reported on here, is unlikely to affect users. Sophos are advising users not to panic following on from wide spread media reaction to the news, some of which has been somewhat hysterical.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said the following about the worm:
The Cabir worm attempts to spread via Bluetooth to other compatible mobile phones in their vicinity, but recipients have to confirm they wish to receive the worm before it can infect them. The only way this virus looks like it will spread is by anti-virus researchers sending it to each other in their high security laboratories. Users probably need to be more concerned about the large number of malicious Windows worms spreading around via email and the internet at the moment.
As we recommended in our previous article, Sophos also recommend that users should disable Bluetooth in their phones, or at the very least disable the "visible to others" functionality unless specifcally required. Sophos also remind users that only phones running the Symbian operating system are vulnerable, and other devices such as computers or printers which have bluetooth are not vulnerable.
Graham Cluley summarised the situation with the following statement:
Mobile devices (PDAs and phones) have been theoretically vulnerable to viruses and Trojans for some years, but there has been very little malware written. The variation in details such as OS version, firmware revision and device characteristics in the mobile arena has resulted in a "moving target" for virus writers. This is one reason why there is not currently a large threat to mobiles from malicious code. The virus writers seem much more interested in attacking the old faithful target: Computers running Microsoft Windows.
Wise words indeed.