Chapter 3 - Timeline of Mobile Malware, Hoaxes, and Threats

Abstract

This chapter presents a timeline of the significant viruses that have set the stage for viruses to come. It splits the timeline into four distinctive mini periods of evolution. For each mobile malware (MM), it presents and discusses its historical impact and provides examples, and describes novel approaches to infection, payload, and distribution that these MMs used as a direct result of the emergence of mobile devices. Many experts predicted in 2000 that exploitation of the mobile market was imminent. They were right, but several years too early in their predictions. The mobile market has matured since the turn of the century and is now one of the most explosive areas of growth, as it is known as an increasingly interconnected world of mobile devices, cellular, and Internet technologies. Mobile banking is a reality, and many younger adults of this generation, ages 18–34, are quickly adopting mobile solutions for communication, entertainment, and productivity with convenience. Financial assets are ripe for the picking, and a mature criminal market concurrently exists to exploit it for maximum profit. The history of MM begins in 2000 with several notable events, including the infamous Timofonica spam to mobile devices, and Liberty MM. 2004 is when the real MM boom began, with the source code of Cabir spread in the wild and multiple variants and new families of code emerged with it. It was soon followed by CommWarrior, spreading through MMS technology that globally went beyond the reach of Bluetooth. MM now exists on more than just the Symbian operating system and also includes criminal exploitation or cash, such as the RedBrowser Trojan that dials a premium line upon installation on a device. The perfect storm of technology, asset development, and criminal capabilities are in place for MM threats to emerge as notable risks going forward.