Monday, April 3, 2006

PCWorld.com - Software Company Argues Product Isn't a Trojan The company selling a mobile-phone spy application that has been labeled malware by F-Secure says the software isn't malicious or illegal. F-Secure software recently began blocking a commercial application called FlexiSpy that bills itself as the world's first spy software built for mobile phones. When FlexiSpy software is loaded onto a Symbian mobile phone, it sends all text messages that are sent and received, as well as call details, to FlexiSpy servers. Users can log on to the servers via the Internet to read the messages and view the call records. The problem, says F-Secure, is that the phone owner may not know the program has been installed and can't uninstall it. "We're convinced that this could be used for malicious and illegal purposes in so many ways that we made the decision to flag it as malware," said Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief research officer. Difference of Opinion? Vervata, the Bangkok, Thailand, company that created FlexiSpy, argues that the product isn't a virus, a Trojan horse, or malware. "Like any other monitoring software there may be a possibility for misuse, but there is nothing inherent in FlexiSpy that makes it illegal or malicious," a Vervata spokesman wrote in an e-mail exchange. He said that the software must be consciously installed by a person, does not self-replicate and doesn't pretend to be something it's not. He said that an uninstall option is provided so the user can uninstall the program at any time but F-Secure found that the application uninstaller doesn't work. 10:22:44 AM

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