Zeus Trojan Threatens Blackberry OS

If you’re a Blackberry user, you might want to know of the impending risks to your phone’s OS.

A snapshot of what Zeus does

According to Trend Micro, an Internet content security leader, the Blackberry OS faces fresh threats from the Trojan ZeuS that’s being used by cyber criminals to tamper with the phone’s security. It’s particularly unnerving because the Blackberry OS for one has been hailed as a secure OS. The ZeuS Trojan, however, has been designed specifically to tamper with Blackberry’s SMS feature.

A little insight into the Zeus trojan’s characteristics – For one, a user will be caught unawares even as the Trojan installs itself in the OS. It disables the Graphical User Interface (GUI), and is not even seen in the list of applications. Once installed, (yes, it installs itself to your system), the virus sends a confirmation message to the administrator to start receiving commands.

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Once through this step, Zeus can practically view, delete and forward SMS, block calls, change the administrator on the device and block phone numbers. If that wasn’t bad enough, the hacker is enabled to change the telephone number the device sends all the data to in the event that it gets shut down. The aim of the Zeus Trojan on smartphones is to track the users’ private information, especially if they’re into mobile banking.