Friday the 13th Phone Hack??

[Former Member 1]

I have a VERY old Ericsson R250s that I keep in the car... I have the full car kit for it and it gives me another number for use on location when I don't want to be dealing with the distraction of usual phone traffic... Plus the phone is bomb proof normally....

This is a VERY basic phone.. Not even a colour screen...

Went out to the shops just then... Put the phone in it's holder and there's a text on it... random number, the text is just garbage characters, so I delete it...

The phone THEN starts to show the old one-to-one carrier name even though it's got a Virgin SIM in it... (it's nver BEEN on one to one OR T-Mobile) Baffled I turn it off then on again, at which the 'insert card' message comes up.... the phone won't boot.

Battery off, sim out, spot of IPA on it and back in, all is well......

But I'm wondering... WTF was that text? Is there some malicious message being sent out to screw with people's phones... Anyone else on Virgin had problems?

 

[Lanarkshire IT Services]

Looks like some sort of anti virus / malware / spam solution is going to be in order for phones!

Regards

 

[Former Member 1]

Looks like some sort of anti virus / malware / spam solution is going to be in order for phones!

Regards

Could be. Obviously whatever this was, it was intended for a more recent/advanced phone than the Ericsson. I'll need to make a few test calls to make sure all is well.... And am a bit hacked off.

I'd be even more hacked off if I'd owned whatever it was they were targetting...

With the service provider logo being changed I'm wodering if it was some sort of 'script' to try and route calls through some rogue network or another?

 

[Lanarkshire IT Services]

Yep probably intended for a Symbian / Windows Mobile smartphone.

Check out Kaspersky Mobile Security

Regards

 

[Former Member 1]

Interesting...

I got put off smartphones a few years back when I had a Treo... I just found the format.. PDA/Phone combined REALLY inconvenient... And the things are just too fragile for me... My phones get wet/dropped/tossed into the bottom of equipment cases...