A bug that first showed up in June as a proof-of-concept mobile phone virus has been spotted online for the first time.
Cabir, a worm thought to be peculiar mostly to Bluetooth-enabled handheld devices, is believed to have turned up doing a little more than just proving it can exist and carry, according to Finnish computer security firm F-Secure.
"It's a proof of concept virus at this stage, although some people are complaining on Internet chatrooms about file losses," said F-Secure antivirus research director Mikko Hypponen, who said Cabir has been reported hitting networks for phones in Singapore using the Bluetooth-compatible Symbian operating system.
The international virus-writing gang 29A first sent an unreleased version of Cabir to antivirus firms which determined it can drain battery power to a large extent while trying to jump to other Bluetooth devices within 30 meters.
"Future variants could have more worrying characteristics, but at this stage it's fairly isolated," Hypponen said. Cabir, in fact, can only move around mobile phones with Bluetooth connections switched on and only when a user accepts an infected file.
Mobile bugs are beginning to make themselves known in cyberspace these days, most notably the Brador bug, a backdoor bug that according to published analyses can give a hacker or cracker complete and invisible access to smart phones, letting them surf the Internet or make telephone calls at will.
