Mobile Viruses

It has just been seven years since the time when first virus was introduced in a game „Mosquito‟ by a company called as Ojam. Ever since then, malware has been introduced in various ways and affecting MCDs (Mobile Computing Devices) all over the world. It has been an issue of great concern since it invades into the privacy of mobile users. Once installed in the victim‟s phone it can track the user‟s location via GPS, call other people, send SMS/MMS, gain unauthorized access to the resources or even use the mobile remotely over the 3G/Wi-Fi Internet connection. It can also cause the user to have a monetary loss without the owner even knowing anything about it. Malware can be categorized into various types-Virus, Worms, Trojan horse, Spyware, etc. They are transferred to the device by emails, messages and downloaded files. One of the characteristics of malware is self-duplication, where it creates replicas inside the device without the user noticing it. Malware can be any type of code, script, executable file or software. The malware writers have not spared any Mobile Operating System, be it Symbian (Nokia), iOS iPhone OS, Android OS, Blackberry or Windows OS. Some of these viruses are Cabir, CommWarrior (Symbian), Rick Astley virus (iOS-iPhone OS) and SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer (Android OS). In this paper, we have analyzed the different types of malware and their effects on Symbian, iOS & Android, Windows, Blackberry devices. We have also suggested ways to detect and remove them.