# Mobile Phone Virus?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-phone-virus/175201
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 14, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-phone-virus/175201 "2003-05-14T14:28:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-phone-virus/175201/1 "2003-05-14T14:28:50Z")
Do they exist? Many mobile phones are now basically little PCs, and many people would be absolutely lost were they to be “taken out” by a virus…
Grim
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### Author:  [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-phone-virus/175201/2 "2003-05-14T15:12:58Z")
"There is no such threat. No mobile phone viruses capable of infecting cell phones and erasing SIM cards have yet been discovered. "
The above quote was lifted direct from snopes at the following link
[http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mobile.htm](http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mobile.htm)
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### Author:  [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-phone-virus/175201/3 "2003-05-14T15:46:07Z")
Well, maybe.
There is a weak spot in a couple of models of Siemens GSM phones that can be exploited to run the battery down. You send a properly formatted SMS to the phone in question, and the phone chokes. It can’t read the message that is being sent to it, and keeps retrying. At some point it quits trying, but a sequence of several such messages is enough to run the battery down - which could be pretty inconvenient.
That may not qualify as a virus, perhaps more of a “denial of service” attack. Things are moving that way, though.