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Security Communications Portables Hardware

Nokia Phone Gets Virus Protection 114

Posted by timothy from the prophylactic dept.
wan-fu writes "After all that talk about bluetooth vulnerabilities and mobile phone virii there will finally be a mobile phone with virus protection. Nokia's 6670 smart phone will be released in October and features software from F-Secure. Perhaps this will raise the eyebrows of some other mobile phone manufacturers to step up and increase their security policies for their phones' operating systems."
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Nokia Phone Gets Virus Protection More

Nokia Phone Gets Virus Protection

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  • Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @01:46PM (#10349384)
    Am I missing something here?

    Why not just make a phone that is secure in the first place and can't get viruses. This has to be the worst marketing ploy ever.

    • They want to copy microsoft!

    • Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)

      by pyrros ( 324803 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:08PM (#10349521)
      >Why not just make a phone that is secure in the first place and
      >can't get viruses. This has to be the worst marketing ploy ever.

      Because people want more and more features. Series 60 phones from nokia can run user-installed programs, and we all know what happens when you mix ease of installation (browse to a WAP/web page) and clueless users.

      Still, the right aproach would be educating users and using some kind of sandbox model:

      "pr0napplet wants to make a phone call"
      [Allow] [Deny] [Always] [Never]

      But I completely agree that bundling snakeoil is NOT the way to go. Moving the antivirus arms race to mobile phones will only hurt the phone market in the long run: when your PC gets 0wned, most of the time you just lose the use of your bandwidth: the spam you send does not immediately hurt you. Should your phone get 0wned, you'll probaly run a service bill in the thousands of dollars (or euros). Once word gets out, some people will be too scared to use a smartphone.

      • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Taladar ( 717494 )
        Because people want more and more features.
        Marketing people want people to believe they want more features.

        • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

          by pyrros ( 324803 )
          Fair point, however I DO want more features on my cellphone. I'd love an applet that lets you use your phone as a remote via IR/BT (and such an applet indeed exists for S60 phones), a GB/GBA emulator, a dice roller app for pen-paper-and-phone rpgs, and there's also another app that remotely controls emule.

          Ok, I admit that a lot (most?) of people who buy an expensive phone would be better off buying last year's (month's ?) model for half the money, but some people out there actually want the blinkenlights.

        • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tim C ( 15259 )
          No, slashdot geeks want to believe that (almost) everyone agrees with them, but in my experience that's not the case. Almost everyone I know who has a feature-filled mobile bought it specifically for one or more of those features. For example, I bought mine because of the integrated camera, bluetooth and ability to run Java apps. A coworker tried for weeks before finally being able to get the phone he wanted, based on its capabilities. He hardly ever sends text messages and doesn't make or recieve many call

      • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Val314 ( 219766 )
        >Because people want more and more features. Series 60 phones from nokia can run user-installed programs, and we all know what happens when you mix ease of installation (browse to a WAP/web page) and clueless users.

        no, Companies want to sell those features, but most People just want to make phone calls.
        • No, if you look at s60 phones, up until recently they were not aimed at people who "just want to make phone calls" as they were rather big and kind of ugly.

          They were mostly aimed at geeks/ mobile phreaks (or wannabes), people with way too much disposable income, and those who got the most expensive phone they could afford without starving to death in order to show off.

      • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Informative)

        by jyristys ( 546156 )
        Still, the right aproach would be educating users and using some kind of sandbox model: "pr0napplet wants to make a phone call" [Allow] [Deny] [Always] [Never]

        Funny you should mention that, because that is pretty much exactly what new Series60 phones do. Also, the only way to get a midlet you write the full rights is to have it signed by the manufacturer of the device or the operator.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:1, Troll)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      you want a phone you can't install any apps on?

      would you buy a computer you can't install any applications on, essentially making it virus free in the process?

      (the so called virus out there now relies on _user_ installing the program he receives from a stranger. however, email has taught us that people _are_ that stupid.)
    • Because companies have comvinced themselves that the rush to innovate doesn't allow enough time to do quality control.

      Now we have cellphone companies making miniature PDA systems saying "gee, a cellphone with windows CE... how did we NOT think of virus protection?"

      At least the hammer hit them in the head before my phone went zombie and started racking up $500 dollar bills spamming viagra advertisement text messages. And now we have videophones. Imagine having your phone eat up its alread limited ban
    • The really sad thing here is that because allot of the manufactures have not implemented Java on the phones (J2ME) properly there are many bugs that could be exploited. It is very easy to make some phones completely freeze or crash or restart with legal Java J2ME code. I don't think this is possible with Java 2 Standard Edition on any operating system. Where is the Java Sandbox? I think it could be possible to write a virus that could make peoples phones freeze. The mobile phone companies need to do more
    • It's quite possible to build an operating system that is highly virus-resistent. You can even do it in a way that users aren't significantly affected. You'd need to occasionally select a file and explicitly install it... maybe once or twice a month you'd have to hit two or three more buttons.

      The problem is that the cellular providers want cellphones they can push content to, without letting the user control the exchange. Most Verizon phones, for example, can ONLY be updated from Verizon's servers (via Get
    • Open Source users do it in public ? OK - but use one of these British telephone boxes ; they have virii, but they cut down on draughts
  • Perhaps we could raise the eyebrows of some editors to step up and increase their editing

  • Viruses Exist on Cellular Telephones (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They do? Good thing I have a phone that just makes calls. Who would have thought of that nowadays?

  • I just want ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Homology ( 639438 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @01:52PM (#10349426)
    a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. And I most certainly don't need a mobile telephone whose OS is so insecure that it needs an anti-virus program.

    • Re:I just want ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vicsun ( 812730 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:06PM (#10349510)
      ...then buy a telephone which is just a telephone. Those who want more bells&whistles will get a phone with more bells&whistles.
      I never got while people complained about today's phones being too complex; older phones, which are just that - phones, can still be purchased and can be purchased at a price lower than a 'new' phones can.

      • Re:I just want ... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by caldfyr ( 814077 )
        I agree. There will always be a simple option for buyers. Personally, I like having things combined, especially when I'm in the airport. When I'm trying to pack light and don't want 40 pounds of carry-on, having a PDA that plays video, checks email, and lets me make phone calls is a godsend.
    • I'm just going to go back to a pager...

    • "a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. "

      Yeah and cars are cars and planes are planes. No place for CD players, clocks, complex error prone computer systems and whatnot.

      Telephony is just a feature and I can't see any particular reason why it should deserve a dedicated box.

      I don't particularly want to carry a multitude of individual plastic/metal containers for each feature that I may need daily, such as a calculator, clock, camera, calendar etc.

      So perhaps these damn thingies, phones, PDAs,

    • Re:I just want ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilNTUser ( 573674 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:57PM (#10349866)

      Goddamnit, stop modding these posts up. They're about as insightful as saying that a computer should just be a calculator.

      • That would be the case if calculators ceased to be available. I don't know about the precise situation where you are, but I'd be willing to bet it isn't particularly easy to get a phone that just phones. Calculators, on the other hand, are easy to find.
        • * I'd be willing to bet it isn't particularly easy to get a phone that just phones.*

          how much are you willing to bet?

          a thousand dollars? a million? a fucking gazillion dollars? your whole pr0n stash? such phones that are "just phones" ARE available, go and buy yourself one if you want(hell, a bit older phones that are 'just phones' are practically free, just get a new battery and you're set).
          • I must stop using that phrase, it's getting to be an annoying habit ;)
            It wasn't easy to find one when I looked, but I must confess that was a while back and I didn't look everywhere. Just the more mainstream places.
            For the record, I'm using an old ex-business phone which does precisely what I need and no more.
  • Automatic updates?? That would be interesting...
    • erm.. rtfa?

      quoted: The Symbian OS smart phones will provide on-device protection, similar in fashion to antivirus protection programs for PCs, with automatic over-the-air antivirus updates for a monthly fee. The final decision about pricing has yet to be made but will be finalized by the time the phone ships "some time in October," Impivaara says. According to the company's current estimates, the antivirus mobile protection license will cost about $3.62 per month, but early buyers will most likely be off

    • Automatic updates?? That would be interesting...

      You'll just pay an annual fee like you do for Norton/Mcafee to have updates

      plus

      Airtime to download them over your 1X modem(or per MB whatever they charge these days)

      marketing: get people to pay for stuff they really don't need
    • through this thing called 'the internet'?

  • Cool...Sorta (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 )
    I mean, it's about time that someone did something to prevent a virus outbreak before it occurs. But it's kind of sad that it took this long. Didn't the past 20 years of computer virus outbreaks give these guys SOME CLUE that they should have been thinking about security from the beginning?

    LK

    • Re:Cool...Sorta (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 ) <deliverance@level4 . o rg> on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:50PM (#10349813) Journal
      Since all phone trafic travels through their networks and all software is propreietary there is no reason for viruses to be able to spread.

      Analysing and removing the packages that contain virus data could be done on the server level much more easily than at the client level, also by charging for the service they are allowing users with phones that don't have virus protection to become infected and increasing the threat of infection to their other users.

      Basically they are screwing everyone in order to eventually offer virus support.

      • Re:Cool...Sorta (Score:2, Insightful)

        by t0shstah ( 629986 )
        Except you don't know what you are talking about. This article refers to the Nokia 6670 which runs the Symbian OS which allows 3rd party applications to be written in C++ or Java and installed on the phone. Therefore, viruses are just disguised as the latest piece of neat software and some people will blindly install them, infecting their phone. These mobile viruses simply infect a single host, as yet they cannot replicate between devices and i'm not sure how they could do as even when they are online they

      • Re:Cool...Sorta (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mobileTen ( 750885 )
        Not so simple to stop viruses at the server or network. The phones can use Bluetooth and data connectors to download programs. The first virus for a phone was spread via Bluetooth. Therefore the Network is not the only place where users can download (infected) programs. And would not be a happy day if the networks went back to limiting where you could download content or software to your phone from? And would not be a happy day if the networks went back to limiting where you could download content or s

  • Good! (Score:5, Funny)

    by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @01:53PM (#10349436)
    The first time I get a phone call that says "Hi! How are you? I call you in order to have your advice! See you later! Thanks," I think I will kill someone.
    • The first time I get a phone call that says "Hi! How are you? I call you in order to have your advice! See you later! Thanks," I think I will kill someone.


      Why? Should you be honored someone finally cares what you think?

  • Same old problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by someguy456 ( 607900 ) <someguy456@phreaker.net> on Saturday September 25, 2004 @01:54PM (#10349445) Homepage Journal
    I don't think I know of a single person who keeps their virus definitions up to date (most of my friends use Linux, the rest aren't very computer-literate). Does anyone really think people will sit download virus updates for their frieking cell phone?

    • Re:Same old problem (Score:4, Insightful)

      by invisik ( 227250 ) * on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#10349486) Homepage
      I think dial-up internet users have trouble keeping their def's up to date, yes. Broadband users, however, typically leave their computer on all the time, so the automatic updating usually works. Norton Antivirus has gotten a lot smarter in catching the latest defs when it can, not on a set schedule anymore.

      Will anyone update their phone? Hopefully it has automatic updates that "just run" when the phone is on and idle. Of course, that has yet to be seen.

      Overall, I agree with the others--a phone should be secure enough from the get-go to not need all this overhead.

      -m
      • Most of the "average" broadband userse I know in fact turn their computers off when they're not on them. Usually because the head of household thinks they use some astronomical amount of power
    • Well my friend, if it's possible for the phone companies to text message their ads to your phone in an instant, I'm sure these guys will find a way to update those definitions during say, 2am, much like a live update thing.

  • A solution looking for a problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by leathered ( 780018 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @01:57PM (#10349460)
    Good score for the marketing people. Buy our phones and get protection against those nasty viruses. Right now the chances of your phone getting infected are practically nil, and most phone viruses have been demonstrated by AV firms themselves to help seed a market for them in the future.

  • Anti-Virus (Score:4, Funny)

    by whiteranger99x ( 235024 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:00PM (#10349479) Journal
    Well, as long as I don't have to sacrifice my Britney Spears ringtones, it's ok with me...

    Wait, I didn't mean Britney Spears ringtones, I meant Slayer ringtones! Yeah, rock the fuck on dudes!!!!

  • I'd rather see Nokia patch the OS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tero ( 39203 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:08PM (#10349525)
    The article states that there's nothing in the phone that makes it particularly susceptible to viruses and that Nokia knows of no capabilities within any of its devices that a virus might exploit. Fair enough, I suppose, but what happens when one day they release a version which has a bug in it.

    The AV software subscription seems to be an monthly based fee type thingy. (Hats off to F-Secure, looks like they're right there on the bleeding edge of squeezing money out of everything).

    What I'd really like to see is Nokia (and other manufacturers) taking their responsibility and offering online (or SMS based) free updates to their OS.

    I don't want to be forced to subscribing into some monthly fee based bloodsucking anti-virus scheme just to be able to use my phone without having to worry about viruses turning my phone into SMS spamming zombie.

    Even Microsoft releases patches every now and then, why not Nokia (and other cell phone manufacturers)?
    • Though this isn't really practical for most people, Nokia will upgrade your firmware if you send them your phone.

      So if there's a bug that's interfering with your use of the phone, it is possible to fix it.

      But I wish that they let you download the firmware upgrade and install it yourself, the way Sony Ericsson has done for some of their smartphones [mobitopia.com].

      • In the UK - and I'd guess the EU, there are nokia stores [nokia.com]

        They're telco agnostic, *very* knowledgable, do stuff like upgrade firmware, swap faulty 'phones (without needing to go near your telco 'support'!), sell accessories, show off the latest phones, etc

        It's nice, because I end up with 3 differing places to go for support:

        * Vendor (eg carphone warehouse)
        * Phone OEM (nokia)
        * telco (eg o2, etc)

        They each have differing support strengths for me as a consumer, but if I want a firmware fix (eg for a

    • "What I'd really like to see is Nokia (and other manufacturers) taking their responsibility and offering online (or SMS based) free updates to their OS."

      Good idea, but the ideal would really be that the phones would boot off anything provided by the user. Who'd worry about viruses if we could run an OS with only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years [openbsd.org]?

    • around here you can get a firmware upgrade if while you have a cup of coffee next door.

      and besides.. they don't know what they would fix, because the 'flaw' that allows these 'viruses'(or rather, a single proof of concept that was known to be possible beforehand anyways) is that the user can install anything he wants, so if there comes a file through bluetooth the user has chosen to keep on then the user can choose to install the program and the program can be of such variety that all it does is send itsel
  • Worm Developed for Nokia Series-60 Phones [slashdot.org].

    The Nokia 6670 is a Series 60 phone.

  • 1. Fear, 2. Anti-fear, 3. Profit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Slinky Saves the Wor ( 759676 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @02:17PM (#10349590) Homepage
    Selling virus protection for a phone is a good way to to get money. IF you don't have it, you could be vulnerable to the most devastating, horrible virus which does all kinds of bad things, deletes your contacts, fills your calendar with crap, melts your phone and rots your brains, right? Get the virus protection and you will be safe, right?

    And remember to upgrade your protection, otherwise you won't be safe, right? So let's make a deal, 9.99 e for a yearly subscription.

    Now you are safe!

    Until the next horrible virus... So don't ever forget to pay. OR ELSE!!

  • How the hell does a cell phone get a virus, is it through internet connectivity or something?
  • Ok, I know this is nitpicking but I have to say this: The plural of "virus" is "viruses" not "virii". If you don't believe me, check your Oxford English Dictionary [oed.com].
    Also, you can find more information from this webpage [ofb.net] that has an analysis of those ignorant minds who use a words like "virii": Those confused souls who write *virii are tacitly positing the existence of the non-word *virius, and declining it as though it were like filius. It's true that l/r are both linguals that sometimes get interchanged, and

  • Nokia: fix the OS first (Score:2, Informative)

    by quigonn ( 80360 )
    I do Symbian OS programming for a living (Symbian OS is the OS that was once EPOC on Psion and now drives a number of mobile phones, including Nokia Series60/80/90 and UIQ [Sony Ericsson P800/900/910]), and I have to say, from the security aspect it's one of the worst operating systems I ever saw. It has absolutely no security measures (besides a trivial buffer overflow checker in TDesC and derived classes), no permission system, nothing. The only really secure part that I saw in it was the Java sandbox.

    So

    • If you are developing applications for mobile phones, do you have to target a specific range of models using the same OS like Symbian, or can you just make mobile Java apps that run on a broad range of mobile phone models that can have systems other than Symbian?

      The mobile phone applications I've looked at online only seem to support a small number of models from specific vendors. I was hoping that there would be a way of writing Java applications for mobile phones that could possibly run on all 3G mobile

      • Every specific series has its own SDK, e.g. the old Series 60 mobiles, the new Series 60 mobiles, Series 80 (Nokia Communicator), the SonyEricsson mobiles. Code that doesn't do any UI stuff is portable between them, but user interfaces have to be implemented extra for each of those models. In fact, you have totally different UI classes on the different mobile phones, e.g. Avkon on Series 60, Qikon on UIQ and Cikon on Series 80. And they are really _totally_ different.

        • Code that doesn't do any UI stuff is portable between them, but user interfaces have to be implemented extra for each of those models.

          So Java MIDP [sun.com] doesn't have any standardised UI? The specs [sun.com](PDF) have the following text...

          A mobile User Interface

          MIDP features a high level user interface API that shields developers from the complexity of building portable applications. This high level API enables developers to build easy to use, highly graphical and portable applications optimized for mobile inform

          • I wasn't talking about Java, but about native Symbian UIs.

            Java is not an option on Symbian, btw, since you cannot even access the filesystem, since you're totally sandboxed when it comes to storage: all you can do is to write into a special "filestore" that is quite limited.

            Java is not capable enough on Symbian OS to do serious programming (like implementing an Online Updater application similar to "Windows Update" for Symbian OS like I do it right now).
    • See my earlier comment about Java J2ME [slashdot.org] The Java Is not secure on the phones.....
    • Motorola runs linux? I wish...mine runs smartphoneos by MS
  • Its sad we are even discussing this. There shouldnt be a concern for viruses, worms or any other exploit.

    I know its a fact of digital life today, but it *shouldnt* be..
  • why not just run Vms on the device..JVMs are secure..and I am sure MS.NET Vms are

  • Uh oh... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can see it now... [slashdot.org]


    [Ring... ring...]

    Hello?

    How are you. I am back. My name is Mister Hamsi. I am seeing you. Haaaaaaaa. You must come to Turkey. I am cleaning your cell phone. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 0. Gule. Gule.

  • kewl (Score:1)

    by bsdU ( 39524 )
    thats exactly what i always wanted ... this situation that i can take care of viruses on my cellphone.
    i mean it is even worst compared to computers ... because there i have somehow free choice which kind of OS hell i choose.
    in the case of cellular phones i am forced depending on hardware how i am annoyed.
    this is really worst.
    when will there be the 1st free phone on the market
    hw only where you can choose your OS

    TSTF

    cellular phones are annoying!
  • See here:
    here [reference.com]
    "virii" doesn't work as a plural.
    • To be kind of picky myself..
      You just read a word, you understood what was meant by it, then you go on to claim that there is no such word?

      Words are ultimately defined by usage. It is so. Whether 'virii' is the correct latin plural or not is kind of beside the point. Actually, there are quite a lot of words and names in english (and likely all languages) which come from that kind of linguistic confusion. There's even a name for the phenomenon, 'popular etymology' or 'folk etymology'.

  • the battle to determine who can pack the most features on a cell phone. Seriously, is all this stuff really needed? If you want to do more than talking, get a PDA.
  • The first step in preventing virus attacks on computers is not to add software to scan for viruses, but to limit the capabilities of any program that interacts with untrusted objects (documents, web pages, and so on) so that there is no mechanism in the program the virus could use to launch itself as an executable or trusted script.
  • Well, regardless of the hype, I think I'm going to enable the IR firewall on my old Nokia 6190. *afixes black tape strip over top of phone*. Damn, I feel much better now.
  • Just make the phone firmware so that it won't let any unauthorized programs run in the first place.
  • When I submitted the story I chose "virii" b/c that is the accepted term for the plural noun of a computer virus. Obviously were I talking about viruses in the biological/physiological context I would have used "viruses"

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