• By John Herrman
    Jan 2, 2009 7:26 AM 11,926
    read more: #security, #s60smsexploit, #s60smsattack, #symbian, #nokia, #curseofsilence, #hackers, #hacks, #exploits, #textmessageexploit

    'Curse of Silence' Attack Can Disable Texting On Most Nokia Phones

    Phones using a number of popular versions of the Symbian S60 mobile OS (the Nokia N95, E71 and N76 just to name a few) can be partially disabled by a maliciously coded text.

    The attack has been lamely dubbed "The Curse of Silence" and it's pretty simple. Due to a glitch in the way that the S60 messaging client handles text messaging, any message from a sender with a name length of over 32 characters, and a small identifier that flags the message as "Internet Electronic Mail." This combination of otherwise rare circumstances causes the messaging client to silently stop receiving any SMSes until the device undergoes a factory reset.

    The exploit is very, very easy to carry out and can damage phones running S60 versions 2.6-3.1, which covers a huge swatch of Nokia's product line. Tobias Engel and the Chaos Computer club, who found the bug, released the details to Nokia a few weeks before passing them on to the public, but as of yet there is no official fix, though our tipster says this third-party program does the trick. Check below for a list of affected phones, and have a look over at the Register for a slightly more in-depth description of the exploit. [Tobias Engel—Thanks, Pauli]

    S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 (S60 3.1):
    Nokia E90 Communicator
    Nokia E71
    Nokia E66
    Nokia E51
    Nokia N95 8GB
    Nokia N95
    Nokia N82
    Nokia N81 8GB
    Nokia N81
    Nokia N76
    Nokia 6290
    Nokia 6124 classic
    Nokia 6121 classic
    Nokia 6120 classic
    Nokia 6110 Navigator
    Nokia 5700 XpressMusic

    S60 3rd Edition, initial release (S60 3.0):
    Nokia E70
    Nokia E65
    Nokia E62
    Nokia E61i
    Nokia E61
    Nokia E60
    Nokia E50
    Nokia N93i
    Nokia N93
    Nokia N92
    Nokia N91 8GB
    Nokia N91
    Nokia N80
    Nokia N77
    Nokia N73
    Nokia N71
    Nokia 5500
    Nokia 3250

    S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3 (S60 2.8):
    Nokia N90
    Nokia N72
    Nokia N70

    S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2 (S60 2.6):
    Nokia 6682
    Nokia 6681
    Nokia 6680
    Nokia 6630


    Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at .