S60 vulnerability stops all incoming SMS and MMS messages

A German group called the Chaos Computer Club has discovered a major vulnerability in the S60 operating system powering many Nokia phones. Called the “Curse of Silence”, it affects all S60 2.6, 2.8, and 3.0 and 3.1 devices.

Emails can be sent via SMS by setting the messages Protocol Identifier
to “Internet Electronic Mail” and formatting the message like this: [email-address][space][message body]. If such messages contain an [email-address] with more than 32 characters, S60 2.6, 2.8, 3.0 and 3.1 devices are not able to receive other SMS or MMS messages anymore.

Essentially, when an SMS formatted in a particular way is sent to an S60 device, the device will then no longer be able to receive any futher SMS or MMS messages. The only fix at this point is to do a hard reset on the device.

Source: Unwired View

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