Security news
Security news7 November 2000
Unavailable is unbelievable!
Sophos advises of mobile phone virus hoax
Sophos, one of the world's leading anti-virus developers, has issued an advisory today about a hoax virus message which is being distributed via email. A number of media organisations have written about the threat, believing it to be true.
The hoax text, which is being forwarded via email by innocent users, warns of a virus which displays the message "UNAVAILABLE" on your mobile phone screen.
Hoaxes are false virus warnings describing extremely dangerous non-existent viruses. In this case, the hoax warns that a virus will remove all information from the phone and render it useless. Hoaxes often cause as much of a problem as genuine viruses because of the amount of email bandwidth they take up when users are asked to forward them to everyone they know.
"There are no mobile phone viruses - mobile phones simply are not powerful enough yet to be infected by viruses," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Hoaxes are a real problem to companies. Our technical support desk still receives more calls about hoaxes than about genuine viruses."
Sophos recommends companies adopt an anti-hoax policy to help contain the problem.
