ICE - Virus Hoax E-mail
I recently blogged about an interesting idea from Bob Brotchie of the East Anglian Ambulance Trust in the UK. I mentioned that I thought it was a ‘good’ idea although it had a few shortcomings.
Well, as usual the hoaxers couldn’t resist and had to spoil the party by creating and distributing an e-mail that claimed that a ‘virus’ had been written to take advantage of the ICE entries in your phone.
Here are the two current versions of the ICE hoax e-mails:
The original:
Be very careful with this one [ICE]. Although the intention is great, it is unfortunately Phase One of a phone based virus that is laying a path for propagating very quickly. Passing it on is part of the virus. Interestingly, such is the deviousness of the people who write these things.
We have already seen the ‘Second Phase’ where a program is sent as part of a ringtone download that goes into your addressbook and looks for something it recognises. You’ve guessed it, an address book entry marked “ICE or I.C.E.” or whatever. It then sends itself to the ‘ICE list’, charging you for the privilege.
The other variant:
Latest Mobile Phone Scam I have just received information that there is a new mobile phone scam concerning Pay as You Go (PAYG) Mobiles.
The scam is that you are asked to set up an “In Case of Emergency (ICE) Account” on your PAYG mobile.
Apparently this is a modular system that searches for the word ICE text and then changes your phones setting and takes any PAYG credit left on your phone.
Please ensure that this information is circulated to all staff and please pass on to family and friends
East Anglian Ambulance Service have confirmed that rumours of ‘ICE’ being a virus are a hoax. There currently is no such virus.
F-Secure had this to say about the hoaxes claims about ICE: “However, now some brain-dead pranksters have started a chain-letter email warning against such practice, because a mobile phone virus might exploit it. This is nonsense. No viruses to exploit the “ICE” number exist or are likely to exist. There are viruses already that go through the full phone book and attack every number.”
A quick search of my blog entries will turn up a number of posts on malware that can [and does] infect smart phones but none are ICE specific.
Links:
Information about the ‘real’ ICE campaign can be found at www.icecontact.com
Original press release about ICE - http://www.eastanglianambulance.com/content/news/newsdetail.asp?newsID=646104183
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