The first ever PocketPC virus was discovered over the weekend – but it’s a proof of concept project and carries no payload. Given how long devices running Microsoft’s PocketPC operating system have been available, it’s surprising that we’ve been lucky up until now.
The virus, Duts, was written by one of the 29A virus group – a group who write viruses as an exercise to analyse dangers and provide information for anti-virus companies. The same group produced the Cabir Symbian virus last month.
Duts is safe even if it gets out in to the wild as it asks for permission before infecting other files, and only affects a limited number of file types. However, it may not be too difficult for someone to reverse engineer the code and produce a malicious variant.
Viruses and trojan horses are now spreading to other platforms, meaning that PDA and phone users, nit just PC owners will have to take anti-virus measures very seriously indeed.
29A Labs
F-Secure on the Duts virus
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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