And now a cell phone virus call Da Vinci

2007
Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, July 29: A cell phone virus named after the controversial film, The Da Vinci Code, has hit mobile phone users in the city, two months after it made its entry into Mumbai.
Unlike common viruses, the Da Vinci Code virus attacks only mobile phones equipped with wireless Bluetooth technology. It also spreads to laptop computers connected through mobile phones.
According to computer virus experts, the virus has crippled at least a thousand cell phones in the State Capital since it made entry a week ago. The virus simply enters cell phones through a pop-up message enticing the users with a preview of the film, The Da Vinci Code. Once it makes its way into the cell phone or the laptop, it clandestinely destroys the stored data crippling the services.
"A photograph containing an eye with a cross in it appeared on my cell phone. And with this the data stored in the phone got erased. The phone book was the first one to be affected," businessman Y Srinivasa Rao.
While the talk of the Da Vinci Code virus attacking cell phones with Bluetooth technology is spreading fast in the city, a few software experts argue that the virus was not a fresh one. Someone has just renamed an existing cell phone virus to draw the attention.
Says anti-virus technology expert MH Nobel, "there's no such virus as The Da Vinci Code virus. It is just a rumour making rounds, first in Mumbai and now in Hyderabad".
The virus can be removed from the hard disk of the cell phone through simple formatting. But given the cost of cell phones with Bluetooth technology, even formatting the hard disk costs anything between Rs 2000 and 2500.
This is the first major virus to spread in the country after the world's first-ever mobile phone virus was detected two years ago.