Battle over Blackberry spyware threat

Spy tool for popular device claims to be legitimate.

The expansion of the

FlexiSpy

mobile device snooping software, originally available only for the

Symbian

platform but with versions for both

Windows Mobile

and

Blackberry

released in May, has caused a war of words between the software maker and security vendor

F-Secure

.

While the maker,

Vervata

, claims its product has numerous legitimate uses and can only be installed by deliberate human interaction on the specific device, many mobile security products are detecting the tool as spyware, thanks to its ability to steal phone data and forward SMS messages and even voice conversations to third parties.

F-Secure

initially

blogged

about the product in May last year, dubbing it the ‘first Trojan Spy for Symbian phones’. A

ZDnet

article (

here

) reported some adverse reactions to the

Blackberry

version, including commentary from an

F-Secure

spokesperson. With many firms including

F-Secure

detecting the product as malware, its maker has issued several highly passionate press releases attacking

F-Secure


here

and

here

, which go as far as describing

F-Secure

‘s own product as malware.

Posted on 04 July 2007 by

Virus Bulletin