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With the countdown to the new year already begun, security researchers are warning Nokia users that a malformed SMS message could prevent their phones from ever receiving another text message.
German security experts demonstrated on Tuesday that the malformed message could be sent from any Nokia phone, even non-smartphone models to a Nokia phone running the Symbian S60 operating systems and stop it from receiving further texts including multimedia messages.
The attack, dubbed the "Curse of Silence", was explained by Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC) member Tobias Engel. He said that smartphones running Series 60 versions 2.6 through 3.1 are unable to receive further messages by SMS or MMS messages after receiving malformed text messages. Versions 2.8 and 3.1 of the software will warn of memory problems after one malformed message, and will fail silently after receiving 11 more such messages.
After the attack the only way to cure the problem is to perform a factory reset on the phone.
Researchers also warned that Sony Ericsson phones running UIQ software on top of Symbian OS are also prone to the attack.
While protection from the threat is available from security vendors, such as F-Secure, Engel said that network operators should filter out such messages to prevent attacks affecting users.
