The first cellular botnet found

Last year, specialists predicted that cellular botnets can appear soon. Unfortunately, it is this moment when the first cellular botnet has been found.

One of the anti-virus companies – Trend Micro – captured and analyzed new variations of viruses of unprecedented type – running on the Symbian operating system. SYMBOS_YXES.B (and the earlier variant SYMBOS_YXES) poses as a legitimate application called ACSServer.exe and collects data from your phone to transfer them to a server. SYMBOS_YXES.B also sends spam to all persons on the contacts list using SMS messages.

Trend Micro believes that the world's first botnet for mobile devices (cellphones, PDAs, etc.) has been discovered. Another, very interesting feature of these viruses, is that both are "signed" (Symbian Signed). Signing process is controlled by the Symbian Foundation and was to ensure that all signed applications are secure and can be fully trusted.