“The First Mobile Phone Virus: Cabir and its Evolution in the Threat Landscape”

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The first known mobile phone virus was called Cabir, or Caribe. It was discovered in June 2004 and mainly targeted devices running the Symbian operating system, which was commonly used in Nokia smartphones at the time. Cabir was a worm that spread via Bluetooth, and while not particularly harmful, it demonstrated the potential for cellphone viruses to spread and infect other devices.

Discovered by Kaspersky and allegedly dubbed after employee Elena Kabirova, the Cabir worm was designed to target Nokia Series 60 phones. It used the handset’s Bluetooth connectivity to send itself to all Bluetooth-enabled devices, including those that don’t run Symbian, such as desktop computers or printers.

Also known as Caribe, SymbOS/Cabir and other names, the malware forced users to accept it as a file transfer. In some cases it repeatedly displayed prompts until the user was forced to accept. Fortunately, the worm was not released into the wild; instead, it was sent to antivirus companies. They concluded that it was harmless in its current state and was created by a group of hackers known as 29A as a proof of concept to gain attention.

Later, a Cabir variant called Mabir emerged, with the ability to spread via Bluetooth and MMS by sending a .sis file over cellular networks. After Cabir emerged, several other mobile phone viruses emerged, including Commwarrior, which also targeted Symbian OS phones and spread via MMS and Bluetooth, and Ikee, the first iPhone worm, discovered in 2009.

As smartphones have become more popular, the threat landscape has evolved and mobile malware has begun to target Android and iOS devices. This led to the development of sophisticated Trojans, such as DroidKungFu and Geinimi, and ransomware like Simplocker, which targeted Android devices. Apple’s iOS platform has also faced threats, although to a lesser extent due to its more restrictive app ecosystem.