Fighting malware and spam

SymbOS malware classification problems

Dr Vesselin Bontchev FRISK Software International

Since 'smart' mobile phones running the Symbian operating system have become popular, so has the malware (mainly viruses and Trojan horses) for them. The peculiarities of this operating system, mainly related to how software for it can be distributed, have resulted in some interesting problems, arising when attempting to classify and identify exactly the malware for it. Although it is not likely that they are being intentionally exploited by the malware authors yet (and, in fact, they are sometimes exacerbated by these people's stupidity and ignorance), these problems nevertheless cause some trouble (both theoretical and practical) to the anti-virus programs for this environment. This paper aims to examine all these problems in detail and to suggest ideas for their circumvention or resolution.