Just what we needed – not: A Trojan horse co-opting computers to spam cell phone owners. But that's what we have now, courtesy of Troj/Delf-HA, according to anti-virus maker Sophos.
The Trojan is said to have hit some Russian-based personal computers and use Russian text-messaging services to send short message service files to cell phone users at random.
"Mobile-phone spam is a huge nuisance and can run up an expensive phone bill for owners," Sophos senior security analyst Gregg Mastoras said November 9. "SMS spammers are now using unprotected, innocent PCs to pass on their unwanted messages."
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has already restricted unsolicited messages to cell phone users without the users' prior consent, but the FCC didn't include unsolicited messages sent through SMS and similar mechanisms.
Delf is believed to download the spam messages it wants to send from a Russia-based Web site, relying on the attacker rather than automatic coding to send itself to prospective victim computers, Sophos said. This is contrary to previously spotted cell phone bugs like Cabir, which try to get into the phone itself.
Four years ago, according to Sophos and other analysts, the Timfonica bug used computers to send floods of SMS messages to Spanish cell phone users, while other SMS spammers have been known to try getting cell phone users to call pay-per-minute numbers or buy into expensive hotlines.
