[Realestatepro]

Hello Everyone! I have been getting numerous BBMS, Tweets, and Facebook /Myspace messages with friends and collegues telling me to Be aware of PIN# 253FD89 (USER NAME: REEMA) Apparently it is a Virus that will steal all your contact and then shut down your blackberry...

Now ive been a member of the Blackberry community for some time now and i like to think of myself as a somewhat smart individual which is why when i got all these messages i kinda laughed and decided to pull the Bull Sh*t card... Because to my knowledge the only virus that has ever even been talked about was BBproxy and to my understanding that was very short lived and its capabilities were meant for BES servers and such...

Regardless, since i know things change all the time and technology and software constantly changes i was curious if anyone could shed some light on this rumor... Does it excist? Is it legit? or is it just some Iphone Kool-Aid drinker blowing smoke? let me hear your thoughts...

Also, I hope everyone had a great Holiday Season! and I wish everyone A Prosperous, Fun, and SAFE New Years!

[amazinglygraceless]

Hey Los! Nothing to worry about. This is a hoax. There was one from a bit back
regarding someone named Christopher Butterfield.

http://forums.crackberry.com/showthread.php?t=321112

Christopher Butterfield hoax | Facebook

[Pilot Prop]

i kninda figured this was a hoax because, if im not mistaken, all BBs have 8 character pins and "the virus" only has 7

[Realestatepro]

Thats what I Figured AG but technology changes so much so quickly that i wanted to cover my A$$ since I have alot of important contacts in my trusty BB... But I knew the CB family would be able to clear this up right away... Which is why i love this community... How have you been by the way? Hope you had an amazing Holiday!

[John Yester]

No worries your Berry is safe. but always remember to do backups often!

[Realestatepro]

Lol Thanks Yester... LOL I am a Back up WH*RE... I Do them Weekly if possible

[davidnc]

Lol yeah I think i saw that with even another name but otherwise was the same hoax as AG has in their post(links)

[TgeekB]

It pops up once in a while but is def a hoax. No worries!

[Scerina]

OMG!!!! Thank god is not true!!! If anything happened to my baby...I would loose it!!! *LOL* Okaies not really but still...viruses are very NASTY!

[jlsparks]

A shameless plug here for SmrtGuard. While my important data is resident on my BES, I'm a little paranoid so I spent the money on SmrtGuard a few months back. I've got it setup to backup all of my data (contacts, cal, messages, notes, tasks, etc) every day at 3am. It does so with no intervention, incredibly reliably, and provides an added sense of security. It has a number of additional features, as well, including SIM protection, device tracking and mapping, and remote wipe.

Back on-topic, if you search in any DB for BB virii the only results are, typically going back a couple of years to the vuln in BES with attachment handling, which they promptly solved. I subscribe to CERT's weekly mailing list of vulns, as well, and am always encouraged to see that RIM is never on the list. It's a secure device. For now

[pkcable]

The Virus is the spammed message itself. Folks get scared and then they pass the same message on to other folks and so on and so on.