the joys of GSM devices you don't control, part 6438

[Tom Yates]

i haven't seen any mention of this on here yet, and it came from the 
latest SANS newsbytes (v11 n56).  it gave me a grin to think of yet 
another thing i don't have to worry about as an openmoko user, because my 
GSM device is entirely under my control, and i can inspect the source for 
everything i run, if i want to.



  --Blackberry Update Found to Contain Spyware
(July 14, 2009)
A United Arab Emirates service provider pushed out a BlackBerry update
that contains spyware capable of intercepting users email and text
messages and sending them back to the server. The
performance-enhancement patch was sent as a WAP Push message to 100,000
users. Its spyware capabilities were discovered only after one user took
a closer look at the update because it appeared to be draining the
devices battery. The battery was being drained because the application
was trying to register with a central server that became overwhelmed
with the traffic, so the devices repeatedly tried to make contact.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/14/blackberry_snooping/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/blackberry-spies/



-- 

       Tom Yates  -  http://www.teaparty.net