SMS phone crash exploit a risk for older Nokias

Source: The Register

Nokia has upgraded its phone software to guard against a security glitch that might allow a cracker to render a phone inoperable by sending a text message. However, older phones may still be vulnerable.

Job de Haas, a researcher at security firm ITSX, gave a presentation during a recent Black Hat conference, where he demonstrated how a malformed message crashes a Nokia 6210 phone on its receipt. He did this by adapting a program called sms_client, which sends an SMS message from an Internet-connected PC, in which the User Data Header is broken.

Once the message is received it is impossible to turn on an infected phone again without somehow deleting the offending message.