'Hack attack' flaw exposed in Nokia phones

NEWS US security company @stake has warned users of Nokia's 6210 GSM phone that they are in danger of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The advisory, posted to the bugtraq security mailing list, describes how a prankster could use the vulnerability to crash a victim's phone. The advisory said: "There is a vulnerability which allows an attacker to send a malicious vCard to a handset, causing it to crash." If an attacker has been successful in crafting the malicious vCard and sending it to the handset, the phone may behave strangely, freeze or stop accepting vCards. The advisory said: "This is a good example of why all newly introduced product functionality should be reviewed to ensure that no new security vulnerabilities will also be introduced. A cursory source code audit would find an error of this type." Users being assured that the vulnerability is not serious - as worst the problem will be an annoyance. Those affected can simply turn their phones off and on again to restart them.