Practice Management

Trojan Infection Found in Cell Phones

According to an article in Wireless Week, anti-virus vendor McAfee issued a warning on the company?s blog that a new Windows Mobile Trojan has been detected in China. The Trojan apparently can disable the handset?s application installation security. According to McAffee, the Trojan, called WinCE/InfoJack, sends the infected device’s serial number, operating system and other information to the author of the Trojan. It also leaves the infected mobile device vulnerable by allowing silent installation of malware. The Trojan modifies the infected device’s security setting to allow unsigned applications to be installed without a warning.

The Trojan was widely distributed along with a number of legitimate installation files, including Google Maps, applications for stock trading and a collection of games. Obviously the Trojan was not the payload desired by those who downloaded software to their cell phones. It reinforces a basic security axiom — do not download unknown software and do not download known software from an unknown site.

Chinese law enforcement agencies have disabled the Web site that created the Trojan. Now if only there was a way to disable the impulse to click on the DOWNLOAD button too quickly!

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Full post as published by Law Practice Management on February 29, 2008 (boomark / email).