An Analysis of the Robustness and Stability of the Network Stack in Symbian-based Smartphones

Abstract

Smartphones are widely used today and their popularity will certainly not slow down in the near future due to improved functionality and new technology improvements. Becoming more and more similar to PCs and laptops, they will also begin to face the same security problems especially in terms of network security. In a previous paper, we have provided a detailed analysis of security issues along with penetration test results for Windows Mobile 5.0 platform based smartphones. In this paper, we extend our vulnerability testing with two more smartphones, both based on the Symbian 9.1 OS. A number of attacks have been done to test the stability of the network stack of the Symbian OS. Detailed results are provided from the tests performed and several vulnerabilities that can render the devices unusable have been found. The results should be very useful for security professionals, researchers and OS vendors and will hopefully result in more attention to be paid to security issues in smartphones and trigger the development of more secure software for mobile operating systems. The findings could also be of interest for end-users who are searching for the most stable platform for mobile applications where security and reliability are key factors.