Carrier IQ rootkit is true and can be deactivated with new apps and steps

Trevor Eckhart, a Connecticut systems administrator, disclosed earlier this week that smartphones like Nokia’s Symbian-based handsets and Android OS phones along with Apple’s iPhones have been found with malicious software.

According to Eckhart, Carrier IQ is a mobile device intelligence services company that develops namesake software which is used to send their customers, major cell phone services carriers, important information regarding the activities on the aforementioned
phones.

According to Carrier IQ, the rootkit is totally harmless and it is only capable of generating reports on a consumer’s daily activities on the network so that major carriers can better their performance in the future.

However, Eckhart has a different viewpoint on the basis of extensive research he undertook recently. First of all, vice versa to what CIQ stated, the rootkit is quite harmful and it does not make reports of only the users’ activities but also reconnaissance
text messages and web browsing. He continued to state that even phones call are kept in a log and location of the users are also included into the reports.

Moreover, Eckhart mentioned an appalling discovery. When the phone is turned to flight mode, the CIQ software still works and keeps records of activities.

When a phone is on flight mode, it does not work with carrier’s network anymore; however, it can be connected to the internet via a WiFi network.

Eckhart has cracked the software and its remedy is available on his developer’s website. The solution works differently for different smartphones.

On iPhone, CIQ can be deactivated by simply following these steps:

• ·         Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage
• ·         Just opt for “Don’t Send”.

However, this works only on iOS 5, there is no solution for the older versions but they will be pouring in soon.

As for Symbian, the software is not open-ended therefore; there cannot be a manual cure to the problem.

The Android phones follow the same track lines but Eckhart has developed software to detect and deactivate this malware.

Simply download Infolife’s Easy Installer to activate the installing process for Eckhart’s ‘Logging Test App’. Both software cannot be downloaded on the phone directly however; SD card seems to be having no objections in allowing the download.

Once downloaded, simply install the log app. The OS will promptly warn that the software is not registered and might be harmful. Simply allow the installation and turn the security to minimal afterwards.

The software will detect if the smartphone has the rootkit installed in it or not. If ‘Yes’ is the case, the user can pay $1 to deactivate this malware forever.

The company might say the rootkit is simply to keep tabs on the quality of services but surely many users do not want their activities to be snooped.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Dec 2 2011. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry