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Cabir added to payload of Symbian mobile Trojan

More skullduggery

Virus writers have packaged the Skulls mobile Trojan with Cabir to create a more potent threat against Symbian Series 60 smart phones. Vulnerable phones include those from manufacturers such as Nokia, Siemens, Panasonic and Sendo.

Skulls-A began infecting users after copies of the malware were posted on some Symbian shareware download sites by hacker called "Tee-222". Skulls commonly poses as an application called "Extended Theme Manager".

If installed on mobile phones running Symbian OS, Skulls will render the smartphone features of the phone useless by deactivating messaging, net access and other apps. The malware replaces application icons with a picture of a skull, hence its name.

The new variant, Skulls-B, does the same while also infecting the phone with the Cabir virus. Cabir, discovered in June this year, also infects phones and devices running the Symbian Series 60 operating system. It spreads between mobile phones using a special Symbian operating system file.

When the infected file is launched, the mobile phone's screen displays the word "Caribe" and the worm modifies the Symbian operating system so that Cabir starts each time the phone is turned on. Cabir scans the airwaves and sends copies of itself to the first vulnerable phone it finds using Bluetooth technology. ®

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