Symbian-Guru brings us news today of a new exploit found, called the Curse of Silence. This exploit could potentially affect our Nokia E71s, so I thought I’d let you know about it. Basically, this is a remote DoS attack, where the attacker would need to send you a series of specially formatted SMS messages that render your phone’s messaging functions useless (hence the name, Curse of Silence).
The attack can not be made over Bluetooth or by installing an application, the assailant would have to have your actual cell phone number in order to carry this out. They would also need to know how to setup the attack message, and send it to your phone repeatedly. Also, note that it doesn’t completely ruin your phone, as a simple hard reset, while annoying, would easily fix your phone.
Symbian-Guru points out the silliness that F-Secure is who announced the exploit, seeing as how they offer an ‘anti-virus’ application for S60 phones, priced ridiculously at $60 for an annual license. As The Guru puts it, ‘You’d be more likely to drop your phone into a puddle of water, or a beer, than have to worry about this exploit.’
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I doubt this problem is in the USA. I never would have thought that the E71 could be affected through blue tooth!
This may or may not be what happened to me recently. I received a series of crank messages from an unknown sender, and shortly after that, my Nokia started displaying the word “Silence” instead of ringing. The phone still lit up and vibrated when a call came in, but it wouldn’t ring and restoring factory settings had no effect. I repaired the problem by simply replacing the SIM chip and opening a new account. A silly annoyance, but I wasn’t happy about it.
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