What is the Cabir Worm?

by Amrita Mitra | Mar 8, 2017 | CompTIA, End Point Protection, Malware Prevention, Mobile Phone Security, Most Common Vulnerabilities

What is the Cabir Worm?

The Cabir Worm is the first computer worm that was designed to infect mobile phones. It was first found in 2004, and at that time, it affected many mobile phones with the Symbian OS. It is also known as the Caribe Worm.

Who developed the Cabir Worm?

Experts believe that the Cabir Worm was first developed by a group of international hackers called 29A. They wanted to prove that mobile phones are also vulnerable to malware. And so, they developed this worm to catch the world’s attention.

The infection and spread of the Cabir Worm

The victim first receives a file named caribe.sis in the phone messaging inbox. If the victim cannot understand the risk, opens the file, and chooses to install it, the Cabir Worm infects the mobile.

Immediately after installation, Cabir Worm gets activated. Before the victim can understand the effects, the malware starts replicating it and infects other mobile phones by exploiting Bluetooth. Experts say the worm starts infecting other mobiles over Bluetooth even before the victim realizes it and disables his own Bluetooth.

After infecting a mobile, the Cabir Worm writes the word “Caribe” on the mobile screen, and it gets activated automatically every time the mobile is turned on.

There is another version of the Cabir Worm, which is capable of replicating itself not only via Bluetooth but also using MMS. It is called the Mabir Worm.

How harmful is the Cabir Worm?

Cabir Worm was first designed to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of mobile phones. Reportedly, it does not cause much harm other than showing the message “Caribe” on the screen.

But, once it starts replicating, it searches for other mobile phones exploiting the Bluetooth connections. As a result, the battery of the mobile drains out very fast.

The prevention of Cabir Worm

Immediately after Cabir Worm was found, patches were released to mitigate the worm. F-Secure developed a security patch to detect the Cabir Worm and delete the worm components from related directories.

The significance of Cabir Worm

The Cabir Worm has lots of importance in the security of mobile phones. This worm demonstrated that mobile phones are also not safe from malware. And it was a wake-up call for all security experts.

I hope this helps. Interested readers who want to know more about how different malware and cyberattacks work and how we can prevent them may want to refer to the book “A Guide To Cyber Security.”

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