Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, January 31:

As the use of wireless technology to transfer information increases, new threats are also emerging. People are receiving e-mails that are spreading a rumour of potential damage that a mobile phone could undergo after being infected by a virus, most likely to displayed by the message ‘UNAVAILABLE’ or ‘ACE’. Although, global IT experts feel that hackers do pose a threat to mobile phone users, particularly those who browse the internet through their mobile phones, there has been no authoritative report from anywhere of such an occurrence or attack on mobile phones.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Madan Kaji Shakya, director at New Service Directorate, Nepal Telecom (NT) said that such a virus can be transferred to mobiles when users use internet services like e-mails and web page browsing through the phone. Since, NT does not provide such a service, NT mobile subscribers do not face such a threat at all.

However, Shakya admitted that if NT is to provide internet services on the mobile phones, it would have to build strong fire-walls to prevent the penetration of hackers to the system so as to keep them free of virus.

Hypothetically speaking, if a mobile gets affected by virus it can damage International Station Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and International Mobile Subscribers Identity (IMSI) of SIM cards, completely damaging phones.