Zombie Cell Phones & Botnets

Cell phones. Everyone seems to have them (except my Dad). They're always coming up with something smaller, newer, better in cell phones. They compute, play music, take pictures, send messages, and (oh yeah) make phone calls. Well it seems they might also be vulnerable to becoming the next potential weapon in cyberwarfare. A new report from Georgia Tech finds that cell phones are extremely vulnerable to hacking, especially as phones become more powerful and the phone's internet connection becomes more reliable. The report finds that hackers can exploit a cell phone's typical lack of security in order to take over the phone and create a "zombie computer" that, when connected with other hacked phones or computers, will create botnets. Remember, a botnet is a network of computers (or phones) that can be used to attack other networks through denial of service attacks or SPAM attacks (the computing kind of spam, not the canned ham kind). Scary, isn't it.